British Rail 1997-Stafford with classes 31, 37, 47, 86, 90, Inter-City 125 HST, 310 & 323
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- čas přidán 30. 06. 2020
- Back to September 1997 now and we see some action at Stafford. Although now a privtitised railway, it still looks like a BR run railway, with BR liveries and traction in abundance. See classes 31 (still in BR blue!), 37, 47, 86, 90, HST, 310 & 323 on Inter-City, Res, ballast workings and Centro locals. We finish with a shot of 37 429 pulling out of Crewe with a Birmingham bound Regional Railways Express. If you liked the video please subscribe to my channel, there are lots more transport & quirky vids to upload!
Hellfire video. Straight into my faves :). I remember it well. 09/09/97. I was at Portobello waiting for 6S44 as usual, which never appeared ( not in your video either so its a mystery ) and while waiting 37417 came up hill followed shortly after by 31467 both making an extreme racket at about 20 mph, wish I had been bothered to lug my video camera down there at that time.
Thanks for your comments....yes video camera's were quite large back then, mine took E180 full sized video tapes so was even bigger. It was the extra batteries that made the bag heavy, the camera itself was quite light. But i'm glad i did so, the old order was being swept away and i filmed as much as i could.....
Takes me back to the days of when we used to go 'spotting' at Rugeley Trent Valley in the very early 80s. Saw some wonderful sights and locos/trains with proper individuality - even the APT on test runs a few times. On the far side of the northbound platform was the then-redundant Cannock Chase line (now back in use) which branched off to the Rugeley 'B' power station for coal deliveries. If you were really lucky you could get a cab ride just along the length of the platform (although I was never lucky enough!) Can't imagine that being allowed nowadays!
I gave a couple of lads a run down Leicester platform in a pair of 37s once....my Shunter had shown thme the cab while i was in the buffet grabbing a sandwich (ened up doing 12 hours so ran out of grub!), i lept back on and thrashed it along a bit! They loved it.......
I was there last year and I’m sure it was the same group of spotters by the waiting room on Platform 4!!
37417 what a beast:-))
It ended up on passenger operations shortly after this and could be seen storming along the North Wales coast and on through trains to BNS....
What a very pleasant evening. Nice choice of traction; 47s and 86s on Mk 2s, a 90 on Mk 3s, and HST; a choice of 310s or 323s on the locals ... Some particularly good thrash from 31467 and 37417.
Yes, happy days. You also had 37/4s on the Regionall Railways Birmingham to Bangor/Holyhead trains, as seen on 429 in the last shot.
Good footage as always, ironically I saw 47853 and 828 today at Crewe Diesel depot and both those locos feature in this, in preceding clips.
Thank you.....Staffford was always a good spot for filming, plenty going on with freight and passenger workings.....
I don't know where you get your footage from, but it is absolutely 1st class brilliant! Really good stuff. All the best, Lee
Thanks for your comments. I filmed all of the historic vids (and a lot of the up-to-date ones as well), i got about a bit back in the 80s & 90s. I worked on the railways then and had a cheap travel pass which helped.....
Used to travel from Stafford to London every other week, sometimes more, during the mid-80s. Excellent journeys and never encountered any problems.
British Rail by the 1990s was no where near as bad as those in power try and claim today. They probably never used BR anyway so had no first hand experience.....
Super amazing! I never witnessed this area of railway operations, but I'm sure it was really cool!
It was good for loco hauled trains back then, all of InterCity workings were loco worked or HST's plus some parcel trains and a fair bit of freight.....
It's thanks to you I am becoming familiar with your rolling stock by sight at least.
This railway is what Sydney's metropolitan system is like. A hybrid of this and a metro. Our suburban trains are enormous double deckers and they run ultra smooth as well as being spacious.
We only now have an actual metro line but run by catenary.
4:30 there's a familiar noise. Apart from that and the basic design and layout of the locomotives, they are actually very different trains. Very few components of the bodies are interchangeable.
Do your XPT's have Valanta engines? This HST has it's original engine happily, they thrashed quite well! London i would say is like Sydney, there you have the London Underground running, in places alongside main line local/commuter services as well as Inter City express services. Due to our loading gauge we only ever had two double deck trains, both EMUs on the Southern Region. They took forever to unload and no more were built. I saw one coach in a scrap yard at Silvertown in the early 1980s, sadly no coaches were ever saved....
@@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus dwell is a real problem with the suburban double deckers during peak.
They persisted after their introduction in the 60s as they allowed more seating which Sydneysiders value highly and they cover longer distances in Sydney's urban sprawl.
The XPT has the 10 Cyl Paxman diesels which are derated as they cannot operate as fast as the HSTs on our track conditions, particularly in the country areas. They were really there to impress the public and make it look like the railways were advancing. The ushering in of the 1980s was a good time to do it I guess and they did look grand when new.
@@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus Two motor coaches of the Bullied "4DD" Double-Deck Units of 1949 vintage survive. I know that one of them has recently been moved and work is going on to restore it as we speak; the other is still in store I think. The condition of both was terrible, but I hope they both can be saved. Truly unique vehicles. They only ran on the Bexleyheath line I believe. Their original running numbers, 4001 & 4002, were given to the the prototype 4-PEP units in 1970 and they were then renumbered sets 9001 & 9002 respectively.
Excellent video which brought back great memories. Pendo's and Voyager's do what they were built for, but having a loco on the front is better in my opinion. Is there a finer sound on our railways than a 37 accelerating from a standing start?
Yes.....a pair of 37s on a heavy train from a standing start........lol
@@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus Good answer.
A lot changed in terms of traction and operations in the late 90s as privatisation demanded maximum efficiency at minimal cost. Didn't happen of course.😒😒😒
No, funnily enough 'bad old British Rail' was the most efficient railway in the world by the 1990s. It wasn't privitised to make it better but for political reasons. It's only real problem was lack of cash, and settlements of only one year at a time, not the five funding packages it has recieved since.
Hey soi you may know when was the first hst past Stafford??
Test runs in the early 1980s I should imagine before their introduction on Cross Country services.....
@@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus so the first proper run 1990?
@@otterlyamazing2605 as a lad I travelled on one in 1988 to Stafford.
Highland region was Abit far from home 🙈
The HST's were like 47's...they travelled far & wide. Stratford 47s could be seen in some far flung places back in the day. Other depots loved to nick 47s as they were such a versatile loco, if you could send a 31 off on a working and nick another Depot's 47s for your work, it was a bonus! If a depot wanted their loco back (for say an exam) they would put a request into TOPS and the sytem would then work the loco back, but it might take several days as it would plan to get it back via live workings. There was an option for an Urgent return when it could be sent back light engine....
@@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus excellent knowledge and well put, thank you