LNER HST farewell tours 18-21/12/19

My version of event of the HST Farewell, seen at Brookmans Park and Hadley Wood. Such a sight

 

Bit of a scrum at York tonight, every man and his dog turned up (I've never seen so many tripods). lol

LNER HST farewell tour, 21/12/19.

 

This was half an hour before arrival, the throng just kept getting bigger and bigger and when the train arrived it turned into a free for all!

 

I remember standing on the platform at Finsbury Park sometime in the mid 1970s and seeing an HST set passing through on test. The railwayman standing next to me said that they would transform long distance rail travel and he was right. That is their true legacy.

 

Great to see!

 

Dec 15th 1400. The last in service HST to leave Waverley.

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Bet there won't be any kind of celebration other than of Great Relief relief when the Hitachi IETs come out of service.

 

I wouldn’t bet on it. The view of HSTs at the time they came in was pretty anti, and they’ve worked their way into affections.


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Anything that is new and replaces older machinery that was well liked is always the brunt of much disdain and hate. Look at the early diesels, disliked for replacing steam but those same diesels classes have become liked and loved by later generations of enthusiasts.

Having sampled a Azuma, HST and 225 on the ECML yesterday I think the services will be in good hands (or wheels) going forward. No doubt the Zoomers will eventually attract a following as they will be what the next generations grow up with. They have great shoes to fill however and will have to work for it.

I do hope a few more HST power cars and Mk3 coaches reach preservation. The repainted set looked brilliant yesterday with great attention to detail in the paint application, it would be a crying shame if it ended up straight on the scrap heap. I for one will be keeping an eye out for news on it like a great many other people I expect.

 

I should have been clearer - I was referring to enthusiast opinion.


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This was ''The Age of the Train''.

E43112 leading W43006 at Adwick on Day 4 ''The West Riding''

 

Not in South Wales. Big comfortable carriages and seats. High Speed. What wasn't to like? Unlike the narrow new IETS with bolt upright downright uncomfortable seats seats; banging bogies and coffee spilling movements over junctions; and excessive noise for electrics from the wafer thin bodies. Yes they've got the acceleration but no higher top speed on our 125 mph network. As we surmised, faster journey times are being achieved through less stops. Of course they couldn't do that with HSTs - not. Still hopefully Great Western will replace the seats wholesale with more comfortable ones in the not too distant future with some kind of shape to the backrests and hopefully the ride quality can be addressed. HSTs had class and I still think the original livery was by far the best.

 

Definitely. I travelled quite a bit from Leeds to London in those days. The timetable in the Deltic era was three eight coach trains a day taking 2 hrs 30 and the rest heavier trains with class 47s taking 3 hrs 15. Towards the end, the Deltics were not 100% reliable and a 47 would substitute if necessary on the 8 coach trains with roughly a 25 min penalty.

The HSTs were a step change both in top speed performance and in levelling up the service to much higher frequency at good timings with a good standard of comfort. The Chris Green era had arrived.

The best Leeds to London time I can recall experiencing with an HST was 1hr 52. The 0720 departed Leeds 7 late and arrived on time. That was quite a run considering the pw slacks between Wakefield and Doncaster in those days.

 

Acceleration isn’t a nonsense, and makes a real difference to how people travel. West Coast route modernisation took the WCML timetable to 3 trains per hour from London to Manchester, and headline journey times to under 2 hours. The air route died as a result - and using trains that are less comfortable than class 80x, with much worse views. Meanwhile, a colleague travels regularly from Cardiff to London and is delighted by the IETs - they quieter, better riding, and allow him to do more work than the HSTs, even though the seats are less good.

Here in Grantham, I mourn the trains that will go yet welcome the opportunity for service acceleration without removing stops. At the same time, I look forward to hearing a Godalming based colleague’s delight at my speed to work becoming still faster.


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The technology in the IETs is brilliant, it's the interiors that let them down. That is no fault of the manufacturer if a quality train has been kitted out on the cheap. It will be interesting to see what the IETs for Hull trains and Transpennine are like as they should have interiors specified by the operator, not DfT.

 

Unfortunately, people on trains seem to spend more time looking at screens rather than looking out of the window or communicating with people.