RAIL BLAZER

Fifty years ago, British Rail’s prototype High Speed Train set a new diesel speed record. Tony Bending looks back on this achievement

- Tony Bending

In the early 1970s, the legacy of Beeching’s rail network cuts from the previous decade still cast a dark shadow over Britain’s railways. The quality and speed of train services were hardly any better than those of the steam era before. Increasing car ownership signalled that Britain, once so fond of its railways, had finally fallen out of love with them.

Governments had road-centric transport policies and rail travel was seen as old fashioned with only a limited place in the future of the UK. All in all, it seemed to indicate a grim future for the country’s rail network.

The challenges of a limited budget and the shift in public perception were not lost on British Rail. They understood the need to deliver a significant step change in service, speed and quality. To get there, though, was going to take something imaginative and forward thinking.

The long-term plan was to deliver the Advanced Passenger Train and design work on this had started back in the 1960s. But its technological complexity led to development issues that meant progress was slow. Something was going to be needed much sooner to rescue the decline in inter-city travel.

So the High Speed Train (HST) was conceived. The specification was challenging. There were to be no new dedicated rail routes constructed as there were for the French TGV or the Japanese Bullet trains. British Rail had to somehow graft a modern, high-performance train and service on to the same steam-age infrastructure that had largely existed for 100 years.

The train would need 4,500 horsepower to sustain 125mph running but be light enough so as not to cause more rail wear than current locomotives. There would be no extra leeway built into the current signalling systems. The train had to be able to go from 125mph to a full stop in the same distance as a conventional train.