The end of an era - The last Inter City 125’s at Cricklewood

One of the things I most enjoy about writing this blog is the opportunity to document and record key moments in the life of our community and environment. I was quite honoured yesterday to get an invitation from Robin Morel of Network Rail to visit Cricklewood Railway depot to see the final visit of the iconic Inter City 125 trains working scheduled services to and from London. These iconic machines hold the world speed record for a diesel powered vehicle, having reached 148mph.

Robin was keen to see the moment recorded for posterity. East Midlands Railways, the operator, had given one of the engines a special lock of paint, with one engine being returned to its original BR livery and another having a brand new EMR design.

These units have thundered between St Pancras, Leeds, Sheffield, Derby, Nottingham and Manchester (for a short period) since 1982. As my house backs onto the line, I’ll miss the distinctive roar of the engines. Robin sent me this information about the trains.

Robin also kindly said a few words about them. I tweeted this out yesterday and got a huge response. It is great to see so many people appreciate this icon of British Engineering .

Here are some videos, one of the final London bound service passing Cricklewood on its way to St Pancras

Here is the last Inter City 125, with its special paint job, arriving at Cricklewood.

services arriving for their rest before the final journey back from St Pancras to Leeds. The unit with the retro paint job is off to the National Raiwlay Museum. It would be nice to see them back occasionally on charter services, which I am sure will happen.

Here is the full album of photos from the day. Once again many thanks to Robin Morel, Network Rail and EMR. I will be posting a blog later in the week, detailing some of the other things we saw on the visit, including the soon to be demolished waste terminal and the works for the new Brent Cross West station.