How people can say BR were backwards when they, in reality, were so far ahead and did so much in comparison to the system we have these days just baffles me. There is no doubt about it, BR tried here and there and with a fraction that was given to the likes of aerospace with Concorde. And yet they manage to come up with something like the HST that is still here nearly half a century later. BR at the rate they were going in development would probably have scrapped the buggers for something new and actually better than the plastic crap we have now!
Now we have to spend a fortune of taxpayer money on foreign stuff for nearly everything. Thanks to a bunch of ignorant small-minded politicians (ie Tories) we gave up on pretty much all our manufacturing and industrial capacity to become a joke of a nation
I think that hst(ic125), whilst still going strong, was reaching the end of its lifespan, and the railways cannot keep old equipment going forever, there are only a certain amount of times you can repair, service, overhaul, rebuild, reengine & refurbish stock etc. before it becomes uneconomic
@@Bertie_Ahern Yep we were sold out and left with no industry of our own to speak of. Our motor industry wouldn't change with the times and our rail industry that wanted to change couldn't find the money, the government thought it best to give even more money to shareholders of foreign companies.
1:02 Wow that's one cool train. It still looks very modern and advanced, even today if you were to see that pull into a station or thunder down the track. Still very futuristic. It's quite, y'know, 'neat' ! British Rail were really making some pioneering High Speed Trains back then. Then the French started to take up the lead (maybe they had a lead already even back then in the 1970s) but its a shame that the railways were privatised and a lot of are imported or foreign made/designed etc. now
The Railways were not just privatised they were deliberately run down and starved of funding for years in favour of the powerful road lobby then sold off for next to nothing exactly the same thing is being tried with the NHS although money is being spent it isn't going on the actual service and when it is a complete disgrace there will be less public resistance to full American takeover.
Thank you for sharing this. I am not a spotter as such. Just an infrequent user of OUR railways. What is hitting me watching these films is HOW MUCH BR Engineering and Research actually did". I applaud those people. :)
Funny to see the driver still use a rag to operate the train, goes back to the old steam days I suppose, when rags helped prevent burns from the hot steam pipes and controls.
The APT was never meant to replace to the HST...they were being developed along side each other in the early/mid 70s. The APT its self might not have caught on, but the principle certainly did, and hence we now have Pendo's all over the WCML.
Pendilino has APT technoligy. Ironic we underfund and scrap it, the Italians develop the technology and sell it back to us. Unbeleivable. Idiotic Goverments of the day. Went on a Hitachi effort the other day out of the Cross. Crap in comparison to a HST Mk 3 or a IC 225 Mk 4. Bargain basement shite. Peterborough was far enough. Wouldn't have fancied Scotland
The prototype HST mostly lives on. One power car scrapped, most of the coaches live on doing various tasks (most notably the New Measurment Train) and the other power car is being restored for mainline running with it's Valenta started for the first time this month!
My god all of these engines look very ahead of their time; some even look more futuristic than today's locos :) Thanks for the upload; I always wanted to see footage of these engines I heard so much about in action :D
In my opinion "Kestrel" was one of the best looking diesels ever produced along with the prototype and production "Deltics" and "Lion". Shame BR couldn't get the tilting mechanism on the APT to work properly.
Fantastic,Kestrel looks great.I can't wait now for Heljan to get their model of it out next year.I love the white coated boffin leaning out of the cab door smoking a pipe...Just so British!!What Ho Ho chap!! The other 2 clips are great too.Thank you for putting this on here for all of us to see. Cheers
You know, if I had worked for Thomas and Friends or The Railway Series, then I would not have given APT-E or HST a proper face, but the face of a Cylon instead. "By Your Command".
If you're interested Video 125 have all 3 of these clips on a DVD of theirs. Its called Classic Railway Newsreels. Other newreels included on this are the prototype Deltic, the first run of the protoducion HST and the Harrow and Wealdstone crash.
No, Kestrel was built in 1968, at least a year after the last 47s. It had a Sulzer V16 engine, unlike the double-six used in the 47s and Peaks. It ran trials on the East Coast Main Line and on coal trains until 1971, when it was exported to Russia. The reason the design was abandoned was that BR were moving away from mixed-traffic locos to purpose-specific designs, hence the HSTs and 56s which followed. Someone wanted to try ad preserve it, I think around 1995, but it had already been cut up.
HS4000 was a 1968 equivalent of the recently-introduced GE Class 70 only being 300 hp more than the latter and weighing two tons less and its a crying shame that BR didn't realise its potential need for forthcoming heavy block trains such as aggregates from Somerset or Port Talbot-Llanwern iron-ore traffic.
It's Advanced Passenger Train - Experimental. APT-P is Advanced Passenger Train - Prototype. If the APT went into full scale production it would have been the APT-S, for Adavnced Passenger Train - Squadron, although i'm no to sure on this one, as on second thoughts it might have been Service.
Remember these? Everyone says how successful the French were with the TGV, but Britain, too, finally came up with a winner albeit not quite as fast, in the HST which is still going strong on the Midland Mainline and some Cross Country routes.
as the last person to go down the main line from the cab of the APT-E a few years back now I can honestly say its the smoothest ride ive ever had and the hope of her doing it again are not on the cards unless we get a lot of help
The designers of the pendos looked at and used the tilting mechanism from the apt-e only refined it a little, during press run, yes they barfed cuz they were hungover but also they never felt the tilting only saw it, so brain could not cope and they were ill. They did too good a job, so the new pendos allow you to feel slight tilt to compensate.
yes, I remember it being touted as the next big thing, set to replace the HST. interest just sort of fizzled out when they couldnt make the suspension work properly. You can't imagine funding for such an adventurous project these days
I didn't know there was another prototype diesel 'Class 47-style' loco! And what a damn pity that the APT was short-sightedly abandoned by government. We would have had the second-best high speed services in Europe! (TGV in France was entering service in 1978)
On the newsreel it uses the company that made the newsreels stock footage of the Prototype HST all stiched together to have something new to look at instead of the same shots used over and over again. The shots with the Mk1 Buffet are from early tests on the Western Region, where the buffet was used to house scientific equiptment. The shots from the actual press run in the buffet depict the interior of a Mk3, not a Mk1.
Ah hindsight, what a wonderul thing. "Kestrel" was designed and built as a high speed passenger locomotive. To that end it was a failure as at 125 tons as it simply hammered the track into oblivion, even after being fitted with lighter class 47 bogies. The future wasn't loco operated passenger trains but as it turned out high speed lightweight self contained sets powered by either diesel (HST) or electric (Pendolino). Locomotive classes 56, 58 and 60 met the freight requirements adequately.
I wrote a piece on Kestrel for Railways Illustrated about 2011 on why BR in the end didnt want it. It was too complex and trying to do too many things.
there was also the falcon which ended up at Ebbw junction to work iron ore from Newport docks to Ebbw Vale steelworks and then was cut up at cashmores in Newport I believe
Sorry if I sound an idiot but I wanna ask, what're those orange and blue couches in the third clip, I've never seen them before and it looks right in the middle of the BR Blue period, are they maybe test couches or some kind of special inspectors ones? I'm quite interested
While we know what an HST sounds like, you can't help rather wishing the funky 60s/70s soundtrack could've let up a bit so we could hear what Kestrel and the APT sounded like a bit more. Anyway, interesting, isn't it, how BR's boffins spent millions and years and years playing with their pet toy the APT, while the engineers just took the existing Mk3 stock, designed power cars for it, and, well, it seems to have worked pretty well, doesn't it. But do they still have Micro Wave Ovens???
Shame.. I think it's one of the most beautiful Brittisch diesel I've ever seen. Nice and streamlined. Much better than the quirky appearance of class 25 and 27 or 31 locomotives..
Marsh was the guy who closed the Waverley Route during his short term post as Transport Minister. The reason for his appointment was due to Wilson's frequent cabinet reshuffles in a deeply unpopular Labour Government. Amazingly at present, they've reopening part of the line to the Galashiels area.
Did you know that when the APT project was scrapped, the technology was sold to the Italians who used it to invent the Pendolino which was bought by Richard Branson's Virgin Trains.
APT naming is as follows: APT-E - Experimental APT-P - Prototype APT-S - Squadron, imagine a 91, Mk4 rake and DVT shaped like an APT-P and you've got an APT-S. Was to be brought into use on the WCML and eventually the ECML. Replying to a previous comment, APTs would have replaced HSTs on major routes (with HSTs going to secondary routes) including the GWML. They've been trying to electrify it for much longer than you think ;).
Kestral never went near the Southern Region, all testing was based out of Derby, which is in the Midlands. Hither Green involved a 201 Hastings Unit, not Kestral.
HS4000, or Kesteral was tested by British Rail all through 1969. After this it sat around at the back of a depot for a year, when it was then sold to the USSR in 1971. Its bogies were re-guaged to broad guage and sent to Russia in the same year. It worked in russia until the mid '80s, when it was withdraw. It spent the rest of its life in a russian scrap yard, until being scrapped in Spring 1991.
I'm afraid very wrong there. 47s started being made in '62 and Kestrel (there was only one) in '67/'68. Kestrel was scrapped in Russia, where it was shiped to after BR was done with it. Even if it did still exist it would be no good, as it had been converted to run on broad gauge, filled with concrete to weigh it down for more traction and various other modifications made.
The Hydrokinetic brakes froze and the tilt mechanism enabled the members of the press to see their lunch for a second time. You've got to remeber that the APT-P was pushed into service way before it was ready, and it was still only a prototype. HS4000 was not a failure, as said before it formed the basis for the TEP70. Remeber, it was the single most powerful diesel locomotive at the time in the world, in a much more restricted loading guage than that in America, or the Continent...
After the Hither Green rail crash, British Rail issued a directive that all locomotives should have an axle weight of no-more than 21 tons. In an attempt to comply with this, Brush fitted the locomotive with modified British Rail Class 47 bogies. The lighter construction and traction motors helped but the attempt was ultimately unsuccessful leaving Kestrel at 22.5 tons per axle. Kestrel continued to be used but the axle-weight problem contributed to the decision to sell the locomotive and prior to this, in March 1971, the original bogies were refitted. Wikipedia.
