British Rail-Manchester Piccadilly with Clacton 309 EMU's 1994 

You're welcome! There is still a lot more to come.....

I'm pleased you like it, i have more from here, earlier and later! Will be uploaded at some point.

There are only so many colours to paint trains in i suppose, what goes around comes around.....But when are we going to get some rateable traction back?...

Isn't that NSE livery?

And some had griddle cars on them so you could have your morning kippers on the way up to London!

The end of BR and the start of the chaos of Railtrack's reign.

@@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus Well said Soi, the start of profit before safety.

@@EM-yk1dw Those in charge hadn't a clue what they were actually in charge of!

Indeed... they stopped using the Weedkiller trains as much, so the vegetation started to grow unchallenged!

@@Cliffjumper24 The p/way engineers of old must be spinning in their graves to see the state of the lineside today. It just looks so un-kempt, if that's uncared for what about the rest of the railway? It doesn't inspire confidence, weeds and tress, bushes ect don't do the track, structures ect any good at all!

Your welcome! I have more footage from the Manchester area, keep watching, there will be more.....

They were always good for a thrash down the Great Eastern main line. Some of the drivers told me they have been run at 100mph plus on occasions!

The Clactons kept to four cars but the 305's were indeed reduced by one car to blend in with the 304's which they were replacing (i assume due to 304's being due a works visit while the ex NSE units still had some time left before they were due).

BR didn't spin anything. The 305's were just introduced as they were basically the same as a 304 unit so the ordinary passengers didn't see any change. I imagine the 304s were due a works visit so were withdrawn and ex NSE units with time left on the clock were drafted in-result! Made for some good filming. The 309s were always a quality unit, basically MkI stock (indeed a fleet reformation in the early 80s actually added loco hauled MkI's into the units!

Lovely trains and were much missed when NSE got rid of them.....

I remember the old DC class 506's and was in Manchester to see them the Saturday of the farewell railtour in 1984.

EM176 I hae to agree with you there. Closing the woodhead route was the wrong thing to do. Why they didn't change it to AC, I don't know?

Not much chance of that, too much self inflicted rules & deadlines we put upon ourselves these days.....

Thank you, there is plenty more to upload, happy viewing!!!

I seem to recall they were on the Crewe run. I also had a ride there on another day plus some vid from there as well.

@@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus They used to turn up on Stoke on Trent and Birmingham New Street services, as well as occasionally on the Euston Manchester Airport services too. A couple of sets made a trip to Hadfield on a railtour too.

@@EM-yk1dw I only saw them in the North West when i was passing through. I imagine certain enthusiastic crews would take great delight in taking them to as many unusual places as they could!

They sometimes turned up on the Hazel Grove stopper as well.

The GE crews liked them, even with a motor cut out (which a lot were towards the end of NSE use) they could still stonk along!

@@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus I remember on GE timing one at 107 mph and that was a stopper .

There was some good classic 1960s traction still running then but the Sprinters are now the same age as these classic units were then!

No, sadly not. Their use in Manchester only came about because NSE had finished with them. And i'm sure some 'crank' type managers put a good case forward for their use in the north west, training costs being cheaper than a works visit for 304's that were due attention possibly???

@@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus aww

Very good- Few questions, were they recorded on VHS, what converter did you use?

@@grahamroffey1566 Yes, my older footage pre 2006 was all filmed on VHS (i had done a bit of cine before that, VHS was soo much better + had sound as well!). I first copied it over to DVD in short play mode to keep the quality up (the VHS tapes i filmed onto were full sized so no loss of quality unlike vid8 where they had to be cpoied onto full sized tapes) and then used a free programme (x-media recode) to converted them to MP4. The VHS tapes have now degraded and have been disposed of but i still have the DVD's and several hard drives of them in MP4.

Always a good spot for the older traction that i liked, plenty more from here for future uploads.....

Well they will be...because they are newer...duh.

s125ish around 2002 when the station was refurbished

Yes nasty toilet smelling foul things! This era was when train travel was a pleasure and not an ordeal like it is now.

Interesting to think that they were originally supposed to be replaced by the APT by about 1985,

@@AndreiTupolev lol

AndreiTupolev yes and the APT was a darn sight more comfortable than those rancid Pendolino rubbish.

When chasing Titans & Metros in Liverpool i tried to keep to loco hauled workings rather than the replacement rubbish.

The 309s had a diagram working the 17:16 SX Piccadilly to Birmingham NS via Crewe. They also did an overnight Birmingham International via Manchester Airport. Good days.

Think they were predominantly for an hourly Man Picc-Man Air express shuttle but also turned up on local diagrams to Crewe and Stoke, plus the aforementioned peak and overnight Birmingham workings. On Saturday mornings there was a semi-fast 07xx Stafford-Man Picc via Stoke they worked that I remember. When North Western Trains won the franchise they briefly had express diagrams to Euston!