Steph Dale
Western Thunderer
Earlier this evening I took myself off to Bristol Temple Meads station for an hour or so.
First up was this short set HST (2+5) on a Taunton or Exeter service, I'd think:
Followed by this 158 shuffling through to Portsmouth:
Another short set HST then took off in the direction of Cardiff:
And then a Taunton-bound IET rumbled in:
And then the star of the show. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the last regular timetabled HST working on the GWR main line:
With the light fading fast I made my way to the other end of the platform. There was a good turn out including press, a lot of GWR employees and perhaps a couple of hundred enthusiasts:
And with horns blaring it cleared the platform, under the bridge and off to Taunton and Exeter:
And that, as they say, was that. Not quite the machines they once were, but graceful to the end. It was like saying goodbye to an old friend. No more high speed runs out west, no more records to break. From the first to the last; the fastest diesel trains in the world.
I will still get the chance to ride on them in their short form; thankfully replacing the (much younger!) 158s on GWR's longer cross-country and south western services. Hopefully I'll also pick up the odd one or two on my travels north and south from Bristol by CrossCountry. But I can't see me getting any more 120mph+ running...
I'm starting to feel old! Not helped when I happened to mention to some chaps I'd been talking to on the platform that I remembered when they were all blue. And properly noisy.
Steph
ps. Sorry about the odd processing on the photos, just a quick job to get them off the camera and compressed enough to go up here.
First up was this short set HST (2+5) on a Taunton or Exeter service, I'd think:
Followed by this 158 shuffling through to Portsmouth:
Another short set HST then took off in the direction of Cardiff:
And then a Taunton-bound IET rumbled in:
And then the star of the show. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the last regular timetabled HST working on the GWR main line:
With the light fading fast I made my way to the other end of the platform. There was a good turn out including press, a lot of GWR employees and perhaps a couple of hundred enthusiasts:
And with horns blaring it cleared the platform, under the bridge and off to Taunton and Exeter:
And that, as they say, was that. Not quite the machines they once were, but graceful to the end. It was like saying goodbye to an old friend. No more high speed runs out west, no more records to break. From the first to the last; the fastest diesel trains in the world.
I will still get the chance to ride on them in their short form; thankfully replacing the (much younger!) 158s on GWR's longer cross-country and south western services. Hopefully I'll also pick up the odd one or two on my travels north and south from Bristol by CrossCountry. But I can't see me getting any more 120mph+ running...
I'm starting to feel old! Not helped when I happened to mention to some chaps I'd been talking to on the platform that I remembered when they were all blue. And properly noisy.
Steph
ps. Sorry about the odd processing on the photos, just a quick job to get them off the camera and compressed enough to go up here.