Tonight, Andrew Bomford
is doing a story on the "new" high speed trains running on Britain's railways. He writes: "they are actually 30 years old, but such is the scramble to find extra seats on overcrowded trains, the railway operators are pulling them off old sidings wherever they can find them and sending them off to be stripped down, refurbished, and pressed back into service with about 30 extra seats per train. Most of the passengers I spoke too were fooled by the new look and thought they were brand new trains. The photos are all taken at the Bombardier Rail Works in Derby, where the HST was originally built in the mid 1970's (then British Rail)..
Old carriages awaiting re-fit
Re-fit underway
Carriages awaiting re-spray
After the paint job
The finished article, two trains waiting to leave Paddington station for South Wales and Cornwall
An interior first class HST carriage (supplied by Bombardier)
An interior shot of a new Standard Class HST carriage (supplied by Bombardier)"
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This reminds me to Shamlessly plug the Keighley & worth valley Railway Beer and music festival 26th 27th 28th Oct
The link on my name should take you to their carriage selection. I'm sure First Train could lease some of these!
Just to remark I have NO connection with the above Preserved railway line apart from enjoying the beer and taking the kids to occasionally play on the trains.
Let's hope these trains have Wi-Fi - for your AQ trips Eddie.
Just heard the sad news about Ronnie Hazlehurst. It's not been a good week so far - so much talent moving on.
Will PM be doing a little montage of Ronnie's themes?
Are You Being Served?
Blankety Blank
The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
Last of the Summer Wine
Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em
I Didn't Know You Cared
Sorry!
Three Up, Two Down
To the Manor Born
The Two Ronnies
Wogan
Wyatt's Watchdogs
Yes Minister
Arrangements
Butterflies
Just Good Friends
Only Fools and Horses
The Likely Lads
No Place Like Home
Three of a Kind
Pop songs
Reach (S Club 7)
What a pedigree Ronnie Hazelhurst had! So many classics. And I remember seeing 'arranged by RH' on so much too. A sad week for broadcasting
The 'new' carriages are all very well but the extra seats mean that there is now no space for luggage that will not fit on the overhead racks.
It is good news that the rail companies are tackling the issue of overcrowding.
This is the first step toward giving many commuters a real alternative to the car.
What we need next is a reduction or freeze on ticket prices; however, I think we may have to wait a while for that.
Best Regards
Otter
Well, I can testify that the trains on the FGW run in the mornings are already crowded when they reach Didcot station (they have been the last two trains I've caught, at least). I've said it here before, and I'll say it again. We need a complete re-think about public transport, both from a national and a local level. There's no evidence of common sense in the timetables, ticket pricing, routes, or coverage. Without a public transport system that can support the majority of commuting and school-runs, we are never going to tempt people out of their cars. I exempt London from this, as even though they get cramped, the buses and tube trains do offer a reasonable way of getting aound the city. They same isn't true outside the Big Smoke. Let's see some of the money, effort, and time being used outside London for once!
The blog can't be all that fast, because my message posted about an hour ago celebrating carriage re-use has not yet appeared. Then again, maybe it missed a connection somewhere.
So, gone are the days when a family or a group of friends could sit around the table and look out of the window. Now, the train is a functional thing, designed to carry as many people from A to B as cheaply as possible.
In the dim and distant past, when the Conservatives were planning privatisation, my MP (Kettering) made comments about the possibility of different comapnies running quality services and cheap 'n' cheerful services. Now, with Nu Labour's interpretation of privatisation, all we have is the cheap. When is this government going to introduce true privatisation, and allow open access on all rail lines? If operators are prepared to run trains without a subsidy, then they should be left to get on with it without the government allocating routes to the highest bidder.
Ah, the beauty of having all the seats facing the same way is that ASBO candidates can't put their dog-mess-encrusted shoes up on the squab opposite.
But I don't like those red things. Don't they know that seeing red could engender carriage-rage?
The trains dont fool me. I have just lobbied my M P about the post office closures. Sorry to hear about Ronnie Hazlehurst too.
I don't want to worry you all but some people are trying to preserve a train with a rahter worrying
Reach? I think not, Jonnie. I think you've been snared by the wiki trolls. Sheetmusicplus cites it as "By S Club 7. Composed by Cathy Dennis, Andrew Todd. Arranged by Roger Emerson."
Ronnie, Ned, Post Offices...but at least the HST has been reincarnated as...well, the HST.
W
TYPO CORRECTED IN THIS VERSION
Am I missing something in RJD's comment? The link takes you to a site for the preservation of a Class 502 train - what's worrying about that???
On the HST, am I right in thinking that First Great Western have squeezed in more seats by removing the buffet? Doesn't exactly seem like a step forward, especially when you notice that FGW's services between Paddington and Bristol now take half an hour LONGER than they did in 1976! What a pity PM seems to have been taken in by FGW's PR machine.....
Poor old Great Western! They just can't get seem to get it right. The new HST interiors have all the charm of a police station interview room These cold colours and stark lighting would make me confess to any crime and flee. Apart from being in the transport industry FGW forget they're also in the hospitality one too. Nobody in hotels or restaurants would choose such a rampantly unfriendly colour scheme. Presumbaly it comes from their limited corporate palette. The worst thing though is the newly darkened/browned out windows. By putting everything in sepia, FGW has all but eliminated the pleasure of watching the countryside. It's as if someone has benn squeezing tea bags all over the glass. However, you can plug in a DVD player and watch a film so there is some relief from the glare.
I wouldn't the refurbishment has customer approval. I noticed in a mixed train at Cardiff boarding passengers gravitated away from the new and towards the old carrriages.
Apparently it's a Porsche designer who's responsible for all this. (from the FGW website). Perhaps a railway designer can now be let loose on the German sports car range. Sweet revenge for what I would call a definite downgrade.
Sad, because I like trains and support them whenever I can.
Henry Lewis
Why do we get so much tabloid style journalism on Radio 4 these days?
There's nothing new about trains being refurbished. What is new - a phenomenon of the privatisation structure with which the last Tory government saddled us and the present government is intent on preserving - is that perfectly serviceable trains are put in sidings. (The rolling stock leasing companies know exactly where they are; they don't need "finding").
What we used to have was 'cascading', a process whereby trains used on front line services were moved on to secondary services when new trains arrived. Now the secondary service operators insist on new trains as well.
Incidentally, the 'Adelantes' which FGW now dismiss so casually are far better trains than Voyagers and have an ambience almost equal to that of a HST (high speed train).
Ironically the HSTs were also an example of another way of making the railway system more economical - a standard train for the whole system. Another example was Chris Green's Networker, which found service on overhead and third-rail electrified lines as well as appearing in diesel form as the Thames Turbos.
Now every new franchise seems to need new trains of a different design and from a different country. All our own rolling stock companies have been sold to foreign companies and we cast the net wider and wider to obtain yet another design of train from further and further across the globe.
Fortunately some reason is returning s it appears that the eventual replacement for the HST will be a new standard train for the whole system which can be elecrical or diesel powered as required.
Why do we get so much tabloid style journalism on Radio 4 these days?
There's nothing new about trains being refurbished. What is new - a phenomenon of the privatisation structure with which the last Tory government saddled us and the present government is intent on preserving - is that perfectly serviceable trains are put in sidings. (The rolling stock leasing companies know exactly where they are; they don't need "finding").
What we used to have was 'cascading', a process whereby trains used on front line services were moved on to secondary services when new trains arrived. Now the secondary service operators insist on new trains as well.
Incidentally, the 'Adelantes' which FGW now dismiss so casually are far better trains than Voyagers and have an ambience almost equal to that of a HST (high speed train).
Ironically the HSTs were also an example of another way of making the railway system more economical - a standard train for the whole system. Another example was Chris Green's Networker, which found service on overhead and third-rail electrified lines as well as appearing in diesel form as the Thames Turbos.
Now every new franchise seems to need new trains of a different design and from a different country. All our own rolling stock companies have been sold to foreign companies and we cast the net wider and wider to obtain yet another design of train from further and further across the globe.
Fortunately some reason is returning s it appears that the eventual replacement for the HST will be a new standard train for the whole system which can be elecrical or diesel powered as required.
Graeme @15, the error message "502" means that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has abandoned blog and jumped overboard, and you should post your comment again. This has been happening a very great deal during the past ten days.
Then when you do re-post after ten minutes or so, the blog cheerfully puts up both posts something up to an hour later, and makes you look like an impatient twit or an incompetent.
Then we get told it is because the blog is too crowded.... which if there have been about three posts in an entire evening seems somewhat unreasonable.
So the number 502 makes bloggers wince a bit at the moment.
Or was that a wind-up?
Why do we get so much tabloid style journalism on Radio 4 these days?
There's nothing new about trains being refurbished. What is new - a phenomenon of the privatisation structure with which the last Tory government saddled us and the present government is intent on preserving - is that perfectly serviceable trains are put in sidings. (The rolling stock leasing companies know exactly where they are; they don't need "finding").
What we used to have was 'cascading', a process whereby trains used on front line services were moved on to secondary services when new trains arrived. Now the secondary service operators insist on new trains as well.
Incidentally, the 'Adelantes' which FGW now dismiss so casually are far better trains than Voyagers and have an ambience almost equal to that of a HST (high speed train).
Ironically the HSTs were also an example of another way of making the railway system more economical - a standard train for the whole system. Another example was Chris Green's Networker, which found service on overhead and third-rail electrified lines as well as appearing in diesel form as the Thames Turbos.
Now every new franchise seems to need new trains of a different design and from a different country. All our own rolling stock companies have been sold to foreign companies and we cast the net wider and wider to obtain yet another design of train from further and further across the globe.
Fortunately some reason is returning as it appears that the eventual replacement for the HST will be a new standard train for the whole system which can be elecrical or diesel powered as required.