HISTORIC FOOTAGE

A total of fourteen English Electric locomotives were shipped from Portugal to Argentina with the aim of reactivating some lines that were closed in the 1990s. Two of the first batch of seven EE LD 844 C Bo-Bos were built at Vulcan Works near Warrington while the other five locomotives – powered by a Mark II eight cylinder 8CSVT prime mover yielding 1370 bhp– were built under licence by Sorefame of Portugal from 1967 to1969. All had Westinghouse air brakes and were modified to fit the Argentine 1676mm ( 5’6" ) gauge. In particular, the bogie protection metalwork had to be raised to avoid short circuits when working over third rail electrified lines.

At the same time ex Portugese owned French built Brissioneau & Lotz diesel locomotives and Sorefame built Budd designed first and second class passenger carriages also arrived from Portugal with a number of Spanish locomotives, carriages, DMUs and EMUs.

However, none had the classic English Electric turbocharged "whistle" captured in this clip. Close your eyes and you could be listening to a British Railways Class 40, or even one of the English Electric built "Pampas crickets" supplied direct to Argentina in the 1950s. As the man in the blue shirt says at the end "Excellente!"

First introduced in 1929 as a development of earlier 0-6-0PT designs, the 57xx pannier tanks were designed by Charles Baker Collett, Chief Mechanical Enginer of the GWR, and 863 were built both at Swindon and by outside contractors up to 1950. Modifications oer the years included welded rather than riveted tanks and a better cab design with larger, squarer windows - as featured on 9681. Duties for 0-6-0PTs included shunting, local freight and branch line passenger trains and these popular engines were used almost exclusively in the final years of steam operation in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire.

Built at Swindon works in 1949 - the second year of British Railways ownership - 9681 worked at Aberbeeg, Oswestry in 1956, Cardiff Canton in 1960, Barry in 1962, Aberdare in 1963 and then Cardiff Canton again until withdrawal from service on 11 July 1965. 9681 then actually steamed into the Woodham Brothers scrapyard at Barry.

The Forest Pannier Tank Fund was formed by members of the Dean Forest Railway in 1973 and a very rusty 9681 was transferred by road to the developing Norchard site on 20 October 1975. Restoration commenced in early 1981 and 9681 was back in steam and a gloss black livery by the mid 1980s. Carrying the original "lion on a bike" British Railways crest, 9681 even returned to Swindon works for demonstration runs in 1989 and 1990.

Incidentally, the low level platform at Norchard was salvaged from Chippenham, Wiltshire, when it was made redundant due to rebuilding ready for the introduction of High Speed Trains - see below for details.

Watching the mileposts and lineside trees shoot past on that October day, the passengers of the first InterCity 125 train could only agree with the proud boast of the driver. The advertising people had got it right. The "Journey Shrinker" was here.

In the years after the first run in 1976 the streamlined multiple unit trains were to slash 33 minutes off the non-stop London to Bristol Parkway journey. A High Speed "Golden Hind" took just five hours to cover the 305 miles between Penzance and the capital and a new World diesel speed record was set up between Paddington and Chippenham, Wiltshire - the 94 miles being travelled in just 50 minutes and 31 seconds. This involved an average speed of 111.7 mph, five miles per hour faster than the than the Tokaido trains of Japan which had previously held the record for the swiftest scheduled service.

Engineers marvelled at the debut of the "125" although thirty years later the travelling public finds it commonplace, albeit more spacious than the Virgin Voyagers and Super Voyagers of the Twenty First Century. But in a way that is a compliment to the idea behind what were originally known as the Class 253 multiple units.

In 1970, British Rail's passenger services were being threatened. Millions of pounds of taxpayer's money had been spent on Motorways and the lines to Scotland - only partly electrified despite govenment promises - were having to compete with jetliners. Western region had no overhead wires at all and despite the use of modern diesels the speeds obtained by the crack expresses of the 1930s stayed out of reach. Even the Mark II carriages that had been introduced a few years previously were no match for the luxurious stock of the continental Trans Europ Expresses.

Since 1950s these had provided a network of fast services exclusively for the first class travellers who were prepared to pay extra for the privilege. However, this approach to high speed railways incurred more problems than were paid for by the surcharges. Ordinary - slower - trains had to be timetabled out of the path of crack expresses, thereby making them even slower and less efficient.

As it was, Western Region had problems trying to runa moderately rapid Diesel Pullman service, but there was another way around the problem. Why not make every service an express?

On the face of it, the idea seemed unlikely. Few sections of track were cleared for even 100 mph working and most of the carriages and locomotives were simply not designed to go that fast. Notwithstanding this however, British Rail took the decision in the early 1970s to improve all British main line railways to let new trains run at 125 mph. Isambard Kingdom Brunel's London to Bristol route with its level track bed and gentle curves was the first line chosen for improvement.

Along its length, stations were rebuilt and track moved into new positions - as witnessed at Chippenham and along the section west to Thingley Junction. Most level crossings were closed and replaced with bridges to improve safety and the whole Hullavington to Chipping Sodbury section was closed from May to September 1975 and totally rebuilt at a cost of £ 3 000 000. A further £ 4 500 000 was spent on high tech signalling finally £ 3 000 000 was invested in two servicing and storage depots. Located at Old Oak Common, London and St Phillips Marsh, Bristol, the concrete sheds were both 700' long.

Meanwhile the prototype High Speed Train was being built at Derby and began trials on Western Region in the spring of 1975. It consisted of seven carriages, each 75 feet long and painted in a striking grey and blue livery. Inside, vestibule doors slid open automatically to reveal full carpet covering in the Second Class ( now known as Standard Class ) areas - like the public address system, a first for a prospectively mass produced British Railways train. The power cars at each end of the rake of Mark III carriages had full height windscreens and traditional type buffers.

Both these features were to be missing from the final production design but even so the prototype lived up to its makers expectations. It proved no more expensive to run than conventional trains and could brake from full speed to a standstill in just the same distance. The newly designed BT10 bogies gave the "Flying Banana" ( as trainspotters started calling it ) a smoother ride than normal - a fact soon realised by its customers who paid no extra fare for the pleasure.

As early as May 1977 Bristol Parkway had to double the size of its 500 space car park to cope with the demand and the InterCity 125 was to become the mainstay of British Rail's non electrified routes for the next two decades. It opened the door for all the other high speed multiple unit trains we see today and saved both the railways and Britain from a massive continuation of the "concrete and jet" attitude to transport that was prevalent in the 1970s.

As Isambard Kingdom Brunel put it "Speed.. is a material ingredient in the perfection of travel". The InterCity 125 - as represented by 43126 "City of Bristol" leading a First Great Western High Speed Train into Gloucester in April 2006 - still has speed and so much more to offer.

The Gloster Meteor F3 had been first operational jet fighter used by the Royal Air Force, and the Gloster Meteor F4 was distinguished from it by a shorter wingspan and longer engine nacelles. The shorter wingspan – 37’ 2" against the original 43’ – was stiffer, and being 6% smaller offered a rate of roll of more than 80 degrees per second. However, the Meteor F4 required higher take off and landing speeds as a result. The more aerodynamic long chord nacelles meanwhile could accept the 3 000 lb thrust Derwent 5 engine, adapted by Rolls Royce from the even larger and more powerful Nene turbojet. Meteor F4s also featured a strengthened airframe and a pressurised cockpit and could reach over 600 mph at sea level and Mach 0.85 at 30,000 ft, an altitude that could be reached in just 6 minutes.

The F4 was also the last fighter version of the Gloster Meteor to be fitted with the original curved tailplane. Single seat Gloster Meteors from the F8 onward had a more rectangular and more streamlined tail.

Meteor F4s equipped 31 RAF and Royal Auxilliary Air Force squadrons (often with flamboyant colours added to the standard roundels and other markings) and remained in service with training units long after they had been replaced by the Meteor F8 in front line service between 1950 and 1955. Meteor F4s were also exported to Argentina, Belgium, Denmark, Egypt and the Netherlands with 46 examples being produced by Armstrong Whitworth - a sister company to Gloster Aircraft within the Hawker Siddeley group.

I am also indebted to Luis de la Fuente for bringing this video to my attention.