Inter City 125 program on channel 5

Or toilet stops?

 

The programmes were too dis- jointed. they weren't easy to follow (for me, Mrs V had no chance............"I thought British Rail had finished"

 

I thought the whole class had to be re-engine a few ago because of poor reliability, no mention of this in either programmes, I seem to remember the engines changes were done by Babcocks at Devonport dock yard.

 

It was as much emissions as reliability. The MTU4000 engines are much cleaner (and quieter!) than the Valentas they replaced. Also, I have seen power cars saying they were re-engineered by Brush at Loughborough.

 

At the end of the day, wasn't the HST just a better job at what had been attempted with the Blue Pullmans... which I don't recall even getting a mention.

 

Nice story regarding the pacers except for one big problem: Air brakes are held off by the air. Running out of air puts the brake on. They are fail safe and f you run out of air the big springs holding the brake shoes on will ensure the train go nowhere until pressure comes back up. This is true for air braked road vehicles as well.

 

Except train air brakes aren't as simple as that (I once thought they were, but they're not). There have been cases where rail vehicles have run away after the air stored in the reservoir has leaked out - the most [in]famous being Lac-Mégantic in Canada.

 

On a typical class 150xx sprinter each outer bogie has two spring operated parking brakes, they use air pressure to release the brake. The remaining six brake units use air pressure to apply the brakes.

 

Back to the programme, I enjoyed it, although I found it odd that they didn't really mention the whole "privatisation" thing in the context of the HST "saving" the railways.

I think I'd have liked a bit of a coda about the future of them as it stands, where they're being cascaded to, a bit about preservation efforts and so on.

I rather enjoyed that it was almost as much about the HST as the APT though.

 

I'd agree with that, I'd even say there was a nice chunk about how to make a nice sandwich too.

 

Shame they kept conflating APT-E with APT-P… the likelihood of APT-P clocking 140mph-Plus between St Pancras and Leicester is no higher today than it was back in the 70s.

Simon

 

For the layman, though, innit?

 

I would have thought that Ron Jarvis (at least one of the 'high-ups' involved) would have merited a mention. Also somewhat amused by the industrial designer fella saying that when they had to re-model the front ends to accommodate two drivers they did away with the buffers and drawgear as fitted to the prototype. Then in later years some sets regained them, the track testing unit being one, also some of so fitted being seen in the programme

 

I agree to an extent but as @DismalChips says, you have to put it in Laymans terms and try and put it into a 45 minute program. Trains are rather cool at the mo lets just be thankful that there was something railway related, had a positive story to tell and on prime time TV.

 

I didn't really get that bit. I remember the Class 50's double heading on the WCML. The combination is nominally more powerful than an IC125.

 

Finally watched the two programmes this weekend.

Meh.

Better to read Nock's Two Miles a Minute.