In Cricklewood to pay homage to the UK's last great engineering design masterpiece

 I was mulling over the day my life changed forever at the weekend. I don't recall the day. I was four years old and it was just after Easter in 1967. It was the day I started at St Vincents Primary School and it was the day my education started. What was I taught? Well back then, we believed that the UK was the best country in the world. We had the best bands, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. We had the best Underground system. The big buzz then was about the Victoria Line, which was opening the following year. In Mill Hill, there was a lot of excitement and disruption as the M1 was being constructed. Huge concrete laying machines slowly made their way from Watford to Fiveways corner. The UK had it''s own Space program, with the Black Arrow and Blue Streak rockets. We were working with the French to develop Concorde, the supersonic airliner that would 'change the way we fly'.

Then there was our railways. These propelled the UK to lead the industrial revolution. Having the Midland Mainline Railway at the bottom of my garden, I witnessed the replacement of 'old fashioned' steam engines with more modern diesel ones. My Dad, being an engineer, was not at all sentimental and considered steam engines to be slow, old rustbuckets and loved the shiny new diesel ones. Dad ran a crash repair business called MacMetals and was a proper petrol head. Every time a fancy new motor, such as an E Type Jag, Aston Martin DB6 etc came in, he'd take me for a spin in it up to Watford, ingnoring all speed limits and often hurtling past police cars. I don't condone such behaviour, but it was real fun!

Within ten years, by the time I was ready to leave school, it had all gone wrong for Britain! Blue Streak and Black Arrow were cancelled. The Motor industry was mired in disputes and almost bankrupt. My Dad's high hopes that the M1 and other motorways would make the UK a pleasure to drive around disappeared and they all became car parks. Concorde only changed travel for a very rich few on a few select routes. It felt like the country was falling apart and that we'd given up. Britains railways summed up the malaise. The Japanese had high speed rail for nearly 20 years, on specially built lines. Here British Rail was struggling to keep the network running, with clapped out engines and Victorian infrastructure. Back then, British Rail did more than just 'run trains'. They ran ferries under the Sealink brand, they made their own sandwiches and had their own brand of Cafe called Travellers Fayre. Unlike modern station franchises, they were cheap and cheerful. They also designed and built their own trains under the British Rail Engineering label. This division was stuffed with some of Britains finest engineers. Starved of funds in the 1970's, they were tasked with modernising the Inter City network with no money. They had two solutions to try and bring us up to speed. The first was the strategic solution, known as the Advanced Passenger Train. It used the latest technology, tilting carriages, that meant trains could travel at high speed on existing tracks, it ran on electrified railways. The other was a stop gap. Originally called The High Speed Train (HST), it was a diesel engine, that used more conventional technology, but was leading edge. It was styled to look modern and it offered a quick route to faster journeys. As most of the network was not electrified, it was introduced on long distance mainline services, which were not electrified. Originally these were the East Coast Main Line between King Cross and Edinburgh and The Great Western Line between London and Bristol and Cardiff. The new trains knocked an hour off the time of a journey between Kings Cross and Edinburgh, with a maximum speed of 125 MPH.

A huge advertising campaign, rather unfortunately with Jimmy Savile at it's helm. The service was branded as Inter City 125 and was a great success. The modern styling and the shorter journey times were proved popular. British Rail sold the design to the Australians, who even had their own version. British Rail had plans to electrify the Intercity Network over the next 25 years, which was the expected life of the these new trains. By 1989, the East Coast line had been electrified and the trains were moved to the shorter Midland Mainline between London, Derby, Nottingham and Sheffield. Sadly, due to lack of investment, initially, they were limited to a maximum of 100mph on this route, although sections were upgraded for faster running over the years.

These workhorses ruled the roost on the line until lockdown. For a long time, it looked like their days would be numbered as the government planned to electrify the line. Work was started and reached Kettering and Corby, before austerity derailed it. The then Minister of Transport decided that it wasn't value for money. This gave the HST's another lease of life, but eventually time caught up with them. The final scheduled service ran on 16th May 2021. The Barnet Eye was lucky enough to be invited to Cricklewood, by Robin Morel, the local Network Rail manager. We recorded this for posterity. It seemed like the days of the HST were numbered, apart from a few destined for museums.

However you can't keep a good design down. Some bright sparks came up with the idea of buying a few of the units to run charters. Others were procured to run services in Scotland, delivering quicker journeys to parts of the network that were in dire need of better services. Recently some have been exported to places such as Mexico and Nigeria. What was seen as a 'stop gap' is still stopping gaps in places that the BREL designers of the 1970's never dreamed of. I find such things fascinating. 

A couple of weeks ago, Robin told me that an HST unit would be back at Cricklewood Rail Depot for a visit. It was running a charter on Saturday from St Pancras to Skegness and so would be being refuelled and stabled overnight in Cricklewood carriage sidings. Robin invited me down for a nose around, whilst it was being refuelled. As I have a bit of a fascination for industrial sites, it was an opportunity not to be missed. Seeing one of these amazing trains at close had was also a pleasure. It also gave me the chance to find out about other planned improvements on the Thameslink line. I asked about the West London Orbital Scheme (still in planning phase), the new freight superhub at Radlett (the line is being closed for nine days at Xmas to build a bridge for the new freight line) and the slowly progressing electrification in the north (new trains arriving soon for testing). 

Since my last visit, the new station at Brent Cross West had been built. Robin seemed amused that the new station has twice the number of trains, for almost no passengers currently than Cricklewood, which is packed to bursting in the morning rush hour. 

We all donned Hi Vis jackets and had a good old look at the things you never normally see. 

Anyway, here are my pictures from the visit

This is the visitor. Painted in what I find to be a rather odd colour scheme, that looks as if it's been photoshopped into black and white!

It is great to see these grand old ladies of the British Rail network looking all nice and shiny with fresh paint. 

Here is a more close up view from the front. As I mentioned above, I am not sure of the colours. It reminds me, and this will date me, of the old Airfix kits. Robin explained that this particular version of the HST has proper buffers. This means it can be used for other duties, such as delivering other trains etc, which apparently is a nice little sideline for Rail Adventures, who own them.

Another view of the train. In the distance you can see the crew that came down with the train. They started their journey in Butterley in Derbyshire. There is a heritage rail centre, where the coaches are kept when not working trips. 

There are inspection points at the depot, to allow cleaners, etc access to the trains. 

A nice view inside the cab.I wonder how many millions of miles has been observed from this view.

We also had a looka round the rest of the facility. The Luton Express service in the background is a broken down unit that is waiting a part from Germany. When this arrives, it has to be dragged to another depot, where they actually have ramps etc and a lift, to repair it. There are no such facilities in Cricklewood anymore. 

"Fill her up Jacko!". Robin Morel of Network Rail explains the refulling process for the diesel locomotives etc at the depot.

After my previous visit, I wrote a tune for The False Dots about some of my experiences on our railways over the years and with some commentary on how it's all gone a bit Pete Tong with privatisation. I used some of my footage from my previous visit, as well as other clips I've taken over the years.