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Intercity 125 / HST use on Minor / Branch Lines - at London Termini


MyRule1
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With more Mk3 coaches and even HST power cars entering preservation, where they might run on, what once were, branch lines. The question arises as to what branch lines did they run on in the past. As far as regular use the only one that comes to mind is the Newquay branch, Were there others? Some might have been visited on railtours.

 

A linked question is has an HST ever visited a London main line terminus other than Paddington, St Pancras or Kings Cross?

Edited by MyRule1
title changed for clarification
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How do we define a branch? Was Newquay always so classified? And would Paignton be defined as a main line now? It does have main line trains, including XC, and an irregular service to London, but is it a main line, given the single-lead junction at NA? 

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44 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

How do we define a branch?

Any discussion here about that might take the thread way off topic, so for the purposes of my question I would say any line not on this map.

 

Map now replaced by one in later post,

 

 

Edited by MyRule1
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12 minutes ago, MyRule1 said:

Any discussion here about that might take the thread way off topic, so for the purposes of my question I would say any line not on this map.

 

s-l300.jpg.f18004a1b45cd2bca040cfa7a8afa95e.jpg

Map’s a bit blurry but lots of lines not on it, e.g. cross-country network, Edinburgh-Perth and undoubtedly more. Those examples not branch lines obviously, just not on that map. 

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14 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

How do we define a branch? 

It's obviously a branch if trains were offered on the block as 1-3 or 1-2  Is Line Clear for Branch Passenger/Goods Train?

So that's the Berks & Hants from Reading for one, and yes it did see HSTs.

12 minutes ago, MyRule1 said:

Any discussion here about that might take the thread way off topic, so for the purposes of my question I would say any line not on this map.

 

s-l300.jpg.f18004a1b45cd2bca040cfa7a8afa95e.jpg

Well Scarboro, the Welsh Valleys, the North London and Aberdeen-Inverness lines aren't on that map, so they must all be branches.

Everything out of Marylebone & Fenchurch Street also.

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1 hour ago, MyRule1 said:

With more Mk3 coaches and even HST power cars entering preservation, where they might run on, what once were, branch lines. The question arises as to what branch lines did they run on in the past. As far as regular use the only one that comes to mind is the Newquay branch, Were there others? Some might have been visited on railtours.

 

A linked question is has an HST ever visited a London main line terminus other than Paddington, St Pancras or Kings Cross?

 

Excluding 'one off' / railtour / charters, then Newquay is the only 'branch' line to get a regular HST service.

 

Some places in west Wales did see HST services at times (Tenby and Fishguard IIRC) and although they might look very 'branch line-ish' these days because of rationalisation by BR they were actually built and regarded as 'main lines'

 

In London, the only places which have hosted HSTs are Waterloo, Paddington, Euston, St Pancras and Kings Cross.

 

They have never been seen at Liverpool Street, Marylebone or any of the other ex Souther region termi.

Edited by phil-b259
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1 hour ago, MyRule1 said:

With more Mk3 coaches and even HST power cars entering preservation, where they might run on, what once were, branch lines. The question arises as to what branch lines did they run on in the past. As far as regular use the only one that comes to mind is the Newquay branch, Were there others? Some might have been visited on railtours.

 

In theory the power unit at each end opens up more destinations by eliminating the need to swap power at the end of a branch (and in the case of steam, finding somewhere to turn it given what runs on the mainline these days).

 

But the question really is where will there be demand for HST trips, and for that I suspect the answer can be found in where do current steam/diesel specials go - so think places like Kingswear - that are already sufficiently large tour destinations.

 

Though I suspect that is more of a long term possibility - with HSTs still running in regular service and not that far gone from major service there may not yet be the demand for people to spend money for a HST charter.

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Great Western HSTs worked into Marylebone on several occasions during the rebuilding works at Reading.  Initially they reversed at Banbury (where the signalling was altered specially to avoid the passengers having to detrain whilst the train reversed - charged to the Reading project I believe) and on later occasions via the Oxford - Bicester link after that was commissioned.

 

Here are a couple of shots of 43094 and 43024 at Marylebone on 28 December 2015.

375221323_D-BR-3380_GWR43094LondonMarylebone28-12-15.jpg.b10e0cad02c663a998c60f58f0a86f36.jpg

 

 

955230439_D-BR-3381_GWR43094CH165019LondonMarylebone28-12-15.jpg.f02291b68f10109615be03894c2da373.jpg

 

 

594569305_D-BR-3385_GWR43024LondonMarylebone28-12-15.jpg.4be60876f3c9f205f90c41cec77cedc0.jpg

Edited by Mike_Walker
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2 hours ago, MyRule1 said:

With more Mk3 coaches and even HST power cars entering preservation, where they might run on, what once were, branch lines. The question arises as to what branch lines did they run on in the past. As far as regular use the only one that comes to mind is the Newquay branch, Were there others? Some might have been visited on railtours.

 

A linked question is has an HST ever visited a London main line terminus other than Paddington, St Pancras or Kings Cross?

 

Skegness had regular summer dated HST services until last year, definitely a branch line, initially from Firsby until most of the Lincolnshire lines closed around 1970, now a long branch line from the Nottingham-Grantham line at Allington junction near Grantham.

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39 minutes ago, DY444 said:

 

They've been to both Marylebone and Waterloo in recent years; eg:

 

 

 

The Marylebone ones were diversions because of engineering works - so although not technically 'one offs' (because they happened over several weekends) they were also not regular timetabled services like the Newquay ones are.

 

Waterloo by contrast saw regular timetabled services for a good few years as part of the push to provide links to 'the regions' pending the introduction of regional Eurostars.

 

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49 minutes ago, great central said:

 

Skegness had regular summer dated HST services until last year, definitely a branch line, initially from Firsby until most of the Lincolnshire lines closed around 1970, now a long branch line from the Nottingham-Grantham line at Allington junction near Grantham.

 

Were these were extension of St Pancras to Nottingham services or were they simply Nottingham - Skegness DMU runs covered by a HST to provide more seats.

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50 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

The obvious question is why would you want a train designed for 200 km/hour on a speed-restricted rural branch line?

Are you looking for an excuse to run one on a model of the branch to Windsor or Portishead?

 

To provide a through service to other parts of the country!

 

Although having an HST run to Newquay might well provide extra capacity over a 2 car DMU shuttling along the branch only, the main reason is to encourage / facilitate journeys from London and the north without the need to change.

 

In modelling terms it would pretty easy to have a fictitious branch line host the odd HST on for similar reasons.

 

In real life though the number of places which saw such workings were tiny.

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20 hours ago, MyRule1 said:

Now found a better quality map

 

R.jpg.32b3deb3d936b3ddbe9885399779459b.jpg

 

Although @phil-b259 may have given a definitive answer, my question relates to lines other than those with "Inter City" service above,

 

Problem is none of those 'Principal routes with some InterCity service's are branch lines!

 

The map omits the only true branch line to see HSTs (Newquay) - as opposed to railways which have been rationalised by BR so the look like branch lines but were / are not operated as such.

 

However Milford Haven and Fishguard saw 'once a day' HSTs to cater for Holiday makers and ferry customers respectively, Paignton saw a more frequent daily service of HSTs which catered for business and commuter traffic, not just holidaymakers.

 

Holyhead did see HSTs for a time when they were used instead of having to swap between Electric and diesel traction at Crewe on London trains in the mid 1990s.

 

Hereford, Bradford, Harrogate, Hull, Inverness and Aberdeen saw HSTs providing the direct services to London (Fort William is on there because of the sleeper service - it didn't have any daytime InterCity services).

 

Poole saw some cross country HST services - but at least half of the InterCity services were actually Mk2 + class 47 jobs.

 

Victoria - Brighton  was NEVER served by InterCity, what the map is trying to show is the Gatwick Express service (which was frequent but only ran to Gatwick) and the couple of cross country trains to Brighton via Reading. Neither operation involved HSTs - the cross country services being Mk2 + class 47 combos.

 

 

 

 

Edited by phil-b259
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