Trains in the 1980s - Paddington Station - March 1988 

Thanks for sharing! Always great to hear how my 1980s videos help bring back memories. 👍😊

one of the best looking flat fronted (ie no bonnet) diesels imho.

My favorite of all the diesel locos , Also proud to be a part owner / shareholder in 50021 Rodney.

@@chrisrichmond403 how?! Do you get to take it out on the tracks often?

@@CT-pv9gu At the moment it’s undergoing a bogie overhaul. However it will be out and about at various preserved railways soon .

We don’t go to London hardly at all now, but when we do it feels completely alien - where has the London of my youth gone? 😩😩😩 - soot and all ! 😆😆😆. Thanks for commenting 👍👍😊

Yeah, as a frequent rail user today I cant feel as nostalgic as most here for these days. Yes the locos are powerful and thats nice but the fumes are disgusting. Modern diesels are bad enough where they are still used! And none of these trains have the romance of the steam engines to make up for their dirtyness. To be fair, Marylebone Station isn't too bad. But its small, which helps. Paddington at peak times, I wouldn't have hung around.

Many thanks! Glad it brought back memories 👍😊

There what i bunked off school for 😂😂😂😂😍😍😍😍😍 ❤The 80's 90's 45's at st pancras🎉🎉🎉

@@paul_my_plumbs_uk They were probably rare back then... now they are the only thing I see!

the sounds of the old diesels were nice, but there is something to be said from not getting lung cancer from just being in the station hall haha

@@mrvwbug4423 long before they introduced no smoking in public places 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I lost interest in Br locomotives in the 1990s I am building my railway circa 1985-86, not dmu/emu in sight, all loco hauled. My only weak spot are 205/207 Dmu’s they have cut down Class 20 engines and sound really nice, I save up …then I buy a class 50 what to do ? All dmu/emus were classed as BOBS…Buses on Boggies in my day 1970-1980s, think we were spoilt all best Richard

Thanks for the comment. Until last year, this footage was languishing on a pile of old VHS cassettes in a cupboard in our spare bedroom. I’m so pleased with the reaction I have had from RU-vidrs to the digitised uploads like this one - it has made the effort more than worthwhile, and yes, I hope it is still available to view long after I’m gone. 👍

Thanks for sharing!

Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks. 👍😊

My pleasure! More Paddington to be uploaded from 1988/89/90 - keep watching 😉

Interesting observation. Yes, it did seem counterintuitive to expect 8+ coaches to fit into a new HST, but did they (GWR) increase the frequency of services to address this? Can’t remember? Thanks for your comment- more Paddington shots to come from April& May that year. 😊

Hi could I venture an idea, southwest and south Wales are served from Paddington and also Birmingham from Edinburgh Leeds etc. These had 8/coaches purely because of the large cities they served and also the west coast line from Glasgow to Birmingham means the south west could have three trains at any one time serving them including Paddington. Now I heard via Br grape vine that 7 coach HSTs served south wales to Pembrokeshire and some station platforms could not serve any larger train that is the only reason for 7 car sets. I know for a fact GWR station Plymouth Penzance etc can handle 10 plus coaches due to their historic building requirements so the frequency of train played in to the decision they made as well as the smaller HST set. Another interesting fact 8 car sets only had 1 first when introduced where as the GWR set had 2…a more affluent clientele? All best Richard

Thanks for the viewpoint- kinda makes sense 😊

The good old rail days

@@OldOakTrains I cannot recall BR InterCity Great Western's HST fleet size at that time (40 ish?), but during the late 1980s all the original fleet of 27 sets had a TS added and sets subsequently transferred in were made up 2+8. Indeed there was severe overcrowding by this time and service frequency was increased too. Not sure about any sets being reduced to 2+7. InterCity CrossCountry HSTs always were 2+7, so perhaps in March 1988 some ICGW sets hadn't yet received the extra coach or ICGW occasionally borrowed a ICXC set to cover a failure. You might recall that all ECML sets retained after full electrification KX-Edinburgh were lengthened to 2+9. On summer Saturdays for a few years a 2+9 from that fleet worked a Leeds-Newquay return trip.

Glad you enjoyed it👍😊

Thanks for commenting, glad you enjoyed it. 👍😊

The current trains are still HST's ?. I mean they do 125mph all day long. Even the slow trains do 110mph.

Thanks. Agree, that livery really suited the 50s, more than any other Class IMHO. 👍😊

Same here! but it’s not too awful now - especially more since retirement 😊😊😊

@@OldOakTrains I've struggled to get back into it. I pop out when I know a 37, 47, 50, 56 or 73 is heading past the village but I struggle to find interest in the modern stuff. I'll go out of my way to catch a 20 or 40

Glad you enjoyed it👍😊

Thanks for watching 👍👍😊

Glad you enjoyed it👍😊

Thanks. If someone had told me back in 1988 when I filmed the blue/grey era that one day someone (who hadn’t even been born yet) would one day be watching and commenting on one of my videos from Australia, I would never had believed them. How technology has changed during my lifetime! Glad you enjoyed it 👍😊😊😊Geoff.

They certainly were…..👍😊

Yes it was, but I’ll leave it to others with more knowledge to tell us what type/ class it was 😊😊

The grey train was a London Transport “C” stock train of six cars working the Hammersmith & City line. At this time, the bodies of these trains was unpainted aluminium and had that grey finish. There were two batches; C69 and C77 built 1969 and 1977 respectively. The C69s had black roofs and the C77s had grey roofs. They could all work interchangeably consisting of three two car units to make a six car train. In one shot in this video you can see a train consisting of two cars of C77 and four cars of C69 as indicated by the different coloured roofs on the same train. C stock was refurbished in about 1992 and received the corporate livery of red, white and blue - thus meaning you could no longer tell between the two batches (unless you were close enough to see the car numbers)! These trains were withdrawn in 2013.

Well, I’m pretty certain you’re the first visitor to the channel from SA, the first to comment anyway 😊😊. Glad you’re enjoying the videos. Pity to hear the trains over there aren’t any better than our modern versions as we’re planning to visit later this year. 🤞

@@OldOakTrainsin the Johannesburg area there some modern trains, the Cape area do run a heritage steam railway, check these two Guys on you tube to see south african trains, South African Railfan on yt and a chap by the name of Jaco Marais, they make good videos about the modern south african railways!

Thanks; great to hear that filming the odd HST back in day wasn’t a mistake. I was always worried about ‘wasting’ battery capacity on them! 😱😊😊😊😊

Thanks 😊

@@OldOakTrains You’re Welcome 👍

ECS; Empty Coaching Stock duty. It used to be performed by panniers at Paddington. Could 08s manage it or was the OOC flyover an issue?

Quite often there was a 31/4 doing the ECS duties, and sometimes Class 50s, but hardly ever an 08, if memory and my video testament serves. Not sure why exactly. 🤷🏻‍♂️

None of the London termini used 350s for ECS moves to carriage servicing points as they were all a few miles out and the low speed would have tied up line capacity. Main line locos used to get them there and back at the same speed as other movements.

What is a 350?​@@andrewoverton5170

@@OldOakTrains 'Gronks' are max 15mph, too slow to do these moves without gobbling up valuable line capacity.

I think that was the case, H&S really took off in the 1990s, before then people were still expected to take some personal responsibility for risk. Thanks for commenting 👍😊

Weird, but when I smell a Class 50 at a heritage railway, it takes me right back to Paddington 🥰😊😊😊

I remember when Paddington station was literally black from all the soot and you were choking when walking to get on the trains. Now its clean and no soot to be seen anywhere.

Amazing how video brings back the smells as well isn’t , in a way still photos don’t…🤔😊😊😊 Thanks for commenting.

Weren’t Peaks cleared for 100mph as well ( maybe just Class 46s) ? Definitely 50s and 55s though…. Thanks for commenting 👍👍😊😊

My only chance to video it before it went, it was only a couple of weeks after I got the camcorder that it was gone!. Thanks for watching and commenting. 👍😊

1960s and 1970s traction, what did you expect. Have you seen how much unburnt fuel a road vehicle of that era spewed out? Different times.

Around 20 years ago City of Westminster Environmental Heath was leaning very heavily on the railway to clean up Paddington's air. Fortunately the HST re-engining project had just started and all L/H workings except the PZ sleeper had gone by then.

@@andrewoverton5170Yeah people like to complain about emissions controls on modern cars, but many of them don't remember how awful the air quality was in cities back in the 70s and 80s, especially American cities like NY and LA. I was at Paddington 3 weeks ago on a visit from the US and the station was spotlessly clean, no diesel fumes, no soot stains, there is something to be said about that too. I couldn't imagine how smoky the paddington train hall would be with a handful of Valenta powered HSTs just idling away in there, especially if train supply was running from the tail end. And soot on absolutely everything, on top of literally everyone smoking cigarettes everywhere. Yes I remember how bad air quality was in the 80s.

It was actually always pretty shit tbh

@@gillscorner794 pretty shit but not quite as shit as it is now. Make Britain slightly less shit again!

🤦