Unfortunately it was worse than that, to force through and justify privatisation of the railways, the government at the time ensured BR kept failing and underfunded it to make the case for private ownership and convince the public to want privitisation. Now look at the utter disconnected mess of foreign ownership we have, and all profits extracted out to other countries' own railway networks...
As epitomised in Macmillan's comments to the the House of Commons on 10th March 1960 as quoted in the Beeching's "The Reshaping of British Railways": First the industry must be of a size and pattern suited to modern conditions and prospects. In particular, the railway system must be remodelled to meet current needs and the modernisation plan must be adapted to this new shape. Mind you, Churchill, as President of the Board of Trade, said roughly the same thing in 1909 when he said the railways didn't have a future without rationalisation and amalgamations. That was one of his better statements.
Indeed. Anyone shocked by the axing of HS2 hasn't looked back into rail history very far. With the APT - do 90% of the design work and then cancel the project and sell the technology to other countries. With HS2 - spend 90% of the money but ensure that the project as delivered provides no benefits whatsoever.
@@Dedubya- 👍 Very good comment, same in my country New Zealand. Our useless government politicians, have sold large amounts of land, and other assets to China 🇨🇳. For reasons no one understands, except them !!..
@@TheFrogfather1 I agree in general regarding the APT although only parts of the BR tech was sold to Fiat to improve on their existing tilting train tech. Regarding HS2 stopping at Birmingham, this means it is a total white elephant imo although isn't it `only' £ 35 Billion that will have been spent instead of £ 100 Billion for the full route? Not sure if £ 100 Billion included the branch to Leeds that has since been axed. The PM has ensured that HS2 is a white elephant by halving tax on domestic flights (cheekily, on the eve of the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow).
Imagine if the government had invested in rail development in the 1980s - so many excellent designs like this one could have become world leaders - and exporters… another superb video, thank you so much for sharing! 😊
I agree, the possibilities were there. Just one example - imagine an OHL or diesel-powered version of the Class 442, which could have easily taken over routes such as the Midland Main Line, the Waterloo-Exeter or London-Norwich routes. They could have also taken the best parts of the Class 87 (which worked really well) as the basis for a 2nd Generation electric locomotive - and wouldn't it have been the most delicious irony if they HAD gone ahead with an electric HST, considering it was developed, in part, due to delays in the original APT project.
Utopian dreams. I can pretty much guarantee no one would be buying our trains private or public. Our car industry was nationalised, it was horrific and even ruined successful names like Jaguar. So I wouldn't fall for the socialist bullshit
Something you'll never forget about these 91's is that oh-so-distinctive cooling fan sound on start-up or in service. Sounds like something from MS Gundam.
Something that hasn't been mentioned much about the revolutionary layout of the Class 91 powercars is that most of their revolutionary features (frame mounted traction motors, underslung transformers, etc) were carried over from the mid-train powercars of the APT-P. Otherwise, excellent video for one of my favourite UK trains!
I think the IC225 is the APT-S (Advanced Passenger Train Service) as they look similar to the APT and were originally designed to tilt, they have a similar profile but with a single power car at one end of the train & 2 conventional bogies on the coaches. Saw the preserved 91 at Crewe Heritage Centre & a Transport for Wales Class 67 / Mk4 train passed through Crewe during my visit to the heritage centre.
@@danielsellers8707 I haven't been able to find out whether the ASEA motors in the APT central power cars were AC induction type or DC machines with brushes like the GEC motors used in the Class 91. As you know the APT was very powerful, the two central power cars producing 8000 BHP total.
Sad to see HST 125 leaving service. Shame the 225 never got to serve at it's design speed, striking train in that Intercity Livery with the graphics matching the slope of the cab.
Hearing how the Tories destroyed trains back on the 80s and 90s feels eerily family to Rishi Sunak's announcement that he's going to cut green policies by a huge extent, offer out several oil contracts, and then merrily put all of this into the King's speech just to seal the deal on how nasty he is as a person.
Class 91s are still used on routes other than London, Newcastle and Leeds. They are a regular visitor up the former Midland Railway lines to Bradford and Skipton
I loved watching this video, even more so than your others, as the Electra is probably my favourite train on the network. I remember in 1991 being on one for the first time, heading home from Newcastle, and being amazed by the fact they had a phone on them (we spent a small fortune, for us, on phone cards and calling our friends). Commuting into Leeds, I'd always wait for one instead of catching an earlier Northern train. Plus, I still get excited hearing one start-up.
What absolutely shocked me was just how loud they were the first time I saw on at Newcastle Central but yeah, apart from that - I think I was thinking the electric swish of the doors on the Enterprise if I'm being honest - they really did seem "the future" and I loved them in LNER livery. To cut a long story short though, the best train I ever saw, ever, ever, was at Leeds, they leased some Class-373's for peak time services between Leeds and LKX c. 2002 and WOW they looked A-MA-ZING. Only thing I've ever see that looks as good, maligned as they are, are GWR Class-800s.
i remember quite clearly in the late eighties and im sure in 84 with hst 125 london to wakefield was 1 hr50 mins and leeds just over 2hrs did it many times now its 2 and half with the hitachi anyone know why we have gone backwards like concord
From the looks of it these locos are very stubborn as any attempt to get them off the ECML has failed also having them on heavy freight would be feasible, even if they are magically bounded to the ecml because these are some absolute UNITS with more hp then a lot of American diesels which if you account in them being British loading gauge is insane
I thought you were kidding but you are 100% right. Most big American diesels have somwhere around 4000 horsepower. The 91s have 6480. That's insane. Amazing locomotives
I sometimes see these engines making north and southbound trips whilst making my journey to and from my college. These include Skyfall, after the James Bond film, the units decorated in the special liveries for the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and Rememberance Day, Flying Scotsman, Sir Bobby Robson, Durham Cathedral and Lord Mayor of Newcastle.
If you would like to get up and close to a class 91, then come and see our one in the museum of Scottish railways at the Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway, in Bo’ness Scotland 🏴 there’s a trailer car too but isn’t on public view (owned by a private company).
I never understood why the nose of the DVT wasn’t built to be identical to the 91. It’s very similar, obviously, but not exactly the same, and not as well resolved. It seems narrower, the angle of the windscreen doesn’t seem quite right, there are flaps underneath the windscreen and why are the horns not behind the actual horn grille? Was Metro-Cammell just not able to duplicate the loco nose properly?
I don't know where that "expense of rebuilding King's Cross station to accomodate overhead wires" myth comes from, but it is nonsense. The electrification (which eventually happened in the mid 70s) required no structural alterations to the station yet that myth still persists... Apart from that I really enjoyed this clip especially those early test shots of the 91s. The current "retro" LNER harks back to those early days of the Mk4s and looks splendid. I will be sad when the do eventually go, not just because they are far more comfortable and refined trains to travel in than those 800/IET units. We've definitely gone backwards in that sense.
It does not make sense does it? Especially as during the modernisation of the WCML, they completely rebuilt Euston, which was reportedly an attractive structure in the 1950s. Kings Cross does not & never did look grand on the scale of St Pancras.
@@TheRip72 They completely rebuilt Euston AND Birmingham New St (complete disaster in design!) along with a number of the more minor stations such as Stafford, Northampton, Coventry etc. I cannot imagine what the expense of all that must have been...but it got done! By contrast very little was changed on the ECML beyond raising bridges where required and track realignment for higher speeds where possible. And the electrification its self was done as cheaply as possible too. It was a cheap job compared to the WCML job of 20 years prior.
Cheap and nasty, some might say. The OLE standard designs have changed a bit since then - although it might gone too far, if you consider the GW main line! While they have upgraded some of the power supply on parts of the ECML, there are still restrictions as to how many services can be operated electrically on some sections for the time being.@@soundseeker63
The Mark 4 DVT were TOPS coded NZA (Driving Luggage Van with airbrakes) and were to diagram NZ502. They were numbered 82200 to 82231. Also in the 82xxx numbering series were the Mark3B DVT 9numbers 82101 to 82152. As any British rail enthusiast could tell you when it comes to locomotive-hauled coaching stock the number just identifies the vehicle and its type (First Class passenger coach, Gangwayed Brake, Genersl Untility Van, etc) and not its TOPS class, which is given by an alpha-numeric code, for example GK1G which is a HST Trailer Buffet First (G indicates a HST vehicle, K identifies it as a Buffet car, the 1 indicates that it carries First Class passengers and the final G indicates that it is of Mark 3 construction.
In fairness to the Government the deregulation of the industry was initiated by EU Directive 91/440 in 1991, which aimed to create a more efficient rail network by creating greater competition. However it was Godsent for the Tories to break up BR who they never seemed to like. They could have fought fiercely against the break up, sighting the efficiency of BR compared to other countries rail organisations, and asked for an exemption, but no, everything was sold off including great companies like BREL. Also there was no need to privatise, just to seperate track & signals from the trains. Search here on RU-vid `Has Privatisation Killed Our Railways? | The Great Railway Disaster | Channel 4 Documentaries', very interesting.
A few minor corrections. You said the IC125 was introduced in 1977. This is incorrect. On the Western, they entered service in 1976. On the East Coast in 1978. And on the Midland Mainline in 1982. The 140 top speed was thought achievable by BR using flashing green signals to signify two signal sections at green, or 5 aspect signalling with 4 signal sections before a red. However, the HMRI would not approve its use, saying that speeds over 125 mph would require in cab signalling as they felt drivers could not observe signals at the 140 mph speed. Many railway operators preferred the Class 89 to the Class 91, which was favoured by the track engineers who prefer 4 axle locos.
I was surprised to find out how narrow these sets are being roughly 2.8m while most HST are 2.9m+ to 3.4m wide. Crazy legacy loading gauges. Fair enough only the TGV derivatives and BR made trains runs high speed lines in the UK
I saw the preserved 91120 at Crewe Heritage Centre yesterday; it looks better than new! I think the InterCity 225 was the APT-S (Advanced Passenger Train Service) as they have a similar design to the APT but with a single power car at one end of the train, similar profiled coaches but with 2 conventional bogies and plug doors as on the APT. Saw a Transport for Wales Mk4 train set passing through Crewe during my visit to the heritage centre, with a Class 67 diesel.
As a card-carrying member of the 225 Group, I can definitively say that this video was well worth the wait. By way of topics for future videos, may I suggest the SBB-CFF-FFS Re 460 of Switzerland and the EMD AEM-7 of America by way of Sweden?
yay, my favourite train :) class 91's and 225 sets are the best, I love there looks and sounds and have very fond memories of travelling on them when back in 2018 I travelled in the cab from London :) cheers for the video mate very well illustrated, keep up the good work
My memories of this electric HST express; my nanna/grandmother owned a hotel when I was a child, the private part had a balcony and as the ECML was quite near to the hotel, I could watch the trains whizzing past sitting, standing on said balcony, a mixture of electric commuter trains, HST diesel, and electric HST trains and the odd freight train. Several years later my dad said that we were to go on holiday in the city of York, and instead of “usually” going in his car, we were going to catch the HST to York station for a change, we went to our local station [Gordon Hill] and caught the class 313 electric commuter train to Finsbury Park station where we got off and caught a main line commuter train to Kings cross (end terminus) station, where we got off [train had terminated] and went & looked at the departure board for the platform, train and time it will leave. We went to the correct platform and an electric HST was sitting there with its doors open (like the one featured in this video) and we got on it, in second class; it was quiet inside the carriage and it had climate control ~ the windows were sealed/not openable, our luggage went on a rack above us and we sat at a table “that we could put things & our lunch on it”, not as luxurious as “first class” = each set of seats had a table aligned in the middle of each window, the table also had a (reading) lamp on it and the windows had curtains that you could close for privacy at night/being blinded by the sun [the train/railway being at a particular angle to it] and the “quiet” rule for passengers. At the start of the journey a female staff member went down the carriage with a trolley of cold/hot drinks/snacks and mum & dad bought tea/coffee from her, when it was time for lunch we had the weird sensation of walking through a moving train, having to walk past all the other passengers in the second class carriages 😳, and operate the vestibule doors at the end of each carriage (part of the quiet experience) to the buffet car where we bought our lunch and went back to our carriage with it and located where the toilets were [I had the experience of using the toilet on that train]. Eventually the train pulled into York station and we got off it and I said “how interesting it was to experience being on an express HST”. ***** at the end of our holiday we went to York station and waited for our HST express to take us back to Kings cross station, as the HST pulled in I recognised it and said to dad “it’s a diesel!”, the only difference with this was [being older] it had “slam doors” with a sliding window in them, the inside was similar to its more modern electric counterpart we were on at the start of our holiday. I can’t remember if the HST express stopped at Stevenage station and we directly got our local train to Gordon Hill. A rememberable experience of riding on these (now withdrawn ☹️) trains, my dad is a “petrol” head and loves fast/sports cars. And has an interest in public transport, but prefers the car when on holiday.
Wow, an outstanding documentary about the ironic class 91's. That would be a dream sight to have the class 91 top and tailing with a HST. I watched a old documentary when during some of the heavy snow fall in late 80's into early 90's, the class 91's had to be replaced with class 47 haulage.
Involved in two accidents in all those years of service, and nether of the two actually being the trains fault. I will forever be impressed by this lady of the line, being as I drove 91's and 43's for 17 years before retirement. I live right by the ECML and remember hearing both trains whine and thunder their way down the line. Sad it is now mostly Asumas. I remember all the problems with that as well, but people are quick to forget that. Your content is brilliant, you have given me so many golden memories.
Alas it is such a sad day when one realises he/she will NEVER witness an intercity 225 working ‘slab end first’…. One bit of trivia, I read that if the formation that struck the car and trailer had been operating with the DVT at the rear, it would have had a lot more weight at the front and may not have derailed causing many fewer casualties…
This essay nicely answers my question as to why Britain's high tech, heavy industry has collapsed. The sheer and utter imbecilic decision making process and the obsession with "might-be"'s is both sad and frustrating. To think of all the wasted opportunities because so many "important people" have a stake.
It reminds me of my beloved IR4 (derived from the danish ic3) except that its reliability got better after a noise filter was fitted. ABB scandia in Randers could have build more if Nyrup eletrified every central inter city route before the great belt bridge.
PS. Did anyone else notice the briefest of brief glimpses of the Class 141/142 Pacer in there when there was a train pulling into a station that could well have been York?
Thanks for this great summary which points up much of how we have got to where we are with Britain's railway. All I can say is, what an utter mess Govt underfunding and privatisation has made of our railways. All for ideology!
Lovely video on the Class 91! I really admire the work you do on these documentaries, they're so well written and presented. Thank you for all that you do!
I still think that LNER should retain the Class 91 "Intercity 225" Mk4 “Electra” units. Or are they going to give up on them from next year and to use the Class 801 Azumas to Leeds. It would be a great shame to see the iconic electric locomotives on the East Coast Main Line gone just like what happened with the Class 43 “Intercity 125”. When it was replaced by the Class 800 Azumas.
@@TheCatOfWarCSGO I only said DVT's, I didn't state which ones. At the time of print in 2019 the three priority fleets were Hitachi GWR, Hitachi LNER and Siemens fleets for the North Western Region. It was a short term filler which they also did with Class 43 services which were used on the South West stopping services where they were needed as the DMU stock was outdated. Now the South West have 180's fully assigned with the odd 158 and 150 service restricted to branch line runs.
Metric system: Look, your empire is gone. Has been gone since 1945. Imperial system was meant for the empire. But the empire is gone. So is the imperial measuring system. That's just the way things work. You can stop using imperial any time, in 1950 would be good.
Did you see that chap at the top of the ladder using his body weight to move the high end of the ladder sideways? H&S would lynch him for that if he was seen doing that nowadays.
I'm trying to not come over all faux-philosopher here so I apologise if I do exactly that.... One sees videos like this and sees the dual-running of steam for top-link express services then sees the Type-55 & latterly Class-55's running said services on the East Coast Main Line. Then, along comes the Class-43 aka "Intercity 125" then the Class-91 aka "Intercity 225" and all this before the 1992 privatization under Major. Thus, the British Rail future railways projects between 1945 and 1992 - that is to say immediately from the end of World War II with Attlee's Labour administration to the end of British Rail for all intents and purposes - really, under BR (whilst BR could have remained after 1992 had the will been there or had Kinnock won) lasted a mere 45 years and indeed, we're getting toward the point where BR will have been gone longer than it was around. So for that 45 years, what did it achieve? Arguably, and I'm sure others better than I have said this elsewhere, not a lot. I mean, one could say that when the Government knew how well London commuter rail worked with the New Works Programme for the underground all future commuter rail should have been electric (indeed Tyne and Wear did have the "Tyneside Electrics") e.g. anything linking two towns within 30-60 mins train journey that wasn't a main-line service, electric. The Class 76 arguably ahead of its time proved the potential of electric locos hauling cargo thus even from the earliest days, one of the mainlines North from the London area should have been fully electrified even back in the days of Antony Eden. Furthermore, for a nationalised industry, famously, there was a whole lot of "non-nationalised-industry-behaviour" I'll call it. Just like British Motors Corp. it competed with itself very often. Yes I very much appreciate one cannot operate a Class 40 somewhere that only a Class 20 can operate *but* where there was potential to standardise, so often it was missed & famously that's the Hymek's and the Warship's. Of course, so much was indeed limited by technology at the time but one can only wonder at this: Had the APT been able to operate on the ECML then just imagine how that could well have worked out, furthermore the Class 373 *could* have been run from the Channel to at least Leeds. I appreciate, in all that, one has to ask "Where would the HST have fitted in there then?" - well, perhaps it wouldn't have - or at least it may well have been much more like a ScotRail "Super-DMU" as they are now, still built but slightly different. What in this scenario I don't think would have happened however is the myriad of diesel loco's doing medium-haul routs for so long (and indeed, still done now by Class 222 Voyagers so often between Newcastle and Devon/Cornwall, whilst admitting this is kind-of what I've just said the HST might have been - just earlier than the Voyager). One could also say that better electrics, sooner, on the ECML could have made it easier to get rid of Class-86s and 87s on the WCML too. I wonder though, when all said and done, anyone at BR in say 1949-1950 ever thought the Mk 1 EMUs and DVTs for Network South East would last as long as they did, indeed, see off - in/around London operations anyway - some of their successors. Its also mad to think its only a year gone since the Class 313 were binned, the TW Metro is just about to get new Stadler units, Class 555 (our Metro's by my reckoning oldest EMUs still operating with a TOPS number on them) - yet the Class 373s are already scrapped, a total waste.
In front of my PC here in Switzerland, I can see, taste and feel things that are so so wrong in British rail systems. In my book you can easily fire just about everybody presently employed in the entire industry involved in railways. What you really need are people who know what they are doing. Yes, I admit, you sort of invented the railway, but after that you stopped learning anything. Get help. Immediately.
Electra class 91s are the ones that are the most dominant high speed trains of the east coast mainline and now as of today some of them are now off to scrapping
No Darlington mentioned on the ECML, not like we had the first passenger railway service or anything, great vid though, such a shame we ruined it and shafted the public purse.
17:27 The underlying cause of the Hatfield crash was the failure of the privatisation contracts. The risks of weak privatisation performance based contracts were pointed out by unions and managers prior to privatisation but knowingly ignored. The politicians and the lawyers who wrote the contracts were the root cause. They as well as the contractor should have been prosecuted under Section 2 of HSWA.
17:46 The driver was prosecuted for this and was made a scapegoat for institutional failings. Although he fell asleep, if the rail overbridge had been adequately protected his vehicle would not have ended up on the tracks and the disaster would not have occurred. The Highways Agency should have recognised the foreseeable risk of a vehicle leaving the road and protected the rail tracks and protected the approach to the bridge accordingly. Their failure has been borne out by their subsequent program of installing additional safety fence on railway . If they were adequately protected by the Highways Agency in the first place the rail crash would ne er have occurred. A perfect example of institutional inadequacy covering their guilt by blaming an individual.
Beautiful, elegant locomotive and the blunt end looks aerodynamic against the passenger coach it's couple to, which wouldn't have been the case for the Class 89. And those chime horns ! Very capable locos that were held back from regular service at 140 mph which could have been used when the train was late at least (as on HS1). From an enthusiast point of view they just sound like a hoover but on the footplate the traction motors can be heard from above about 30 mph (there are footplate videos here on YT such as `Class 91 Cab Ride - London KX - Stevenage (Part1)'. I hope they are sold overseas rather than scrapped but of course will need re-gearing if for freight use.
