They’re almost all older than me, yet the majority built are still in service - reliable and useful locos from an era when very few were!
Unrelated, but this image has much to recommend it!
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FWIW, the pick-up shoes are retractable.
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Every time I go to my brothers he points out and moans about hs2,and the more I hear about it I realise that it seems to be an utter pile of shite.
18 trains per hour to Birmingham and back,who the hell is going to use it?
It runs at the back of my sisters house in Ruislip,and there is one of the massive air vents close to her. It sounds like an incoming missile when it goes off.
Bloke who lived there got £15,000 inconvenience money,then sold the house to my sister.
I don’t understand why they didn’t just lay new tracks on the existing line. I know to get the speed it needs to be in a straight line,but what happened to those ones that leaned into bends?
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Total white elephant !
For less than a quarter of the cost, they could have upgraded the existing infrastructure in order the gain the 20 minutes that they claim to be saving on the journey from Birmingham.
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This definitely didn’t help for the people of Amersham 14 years ago
Oh right:
“…where he will see Derby-built trains in action
…”
That’ll be the Gautrain based on Electrostar which is quite old now, innit… come on guyz, u can do better than this! 
Once upon a time it would have been Metro-Cammel or Bombardier.
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It’s called Alstom now (as you no doubt know), but still Derby based - these companies are a bit like F1: the names change, but not that much else.
I guess the elderly designs help with parts commonality, technical familiarity, and (mostly) cheapness…
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I went on enough rubbish Southern/Thameslink tin cans to still think of the Electrostars as new.
Just Finland changing the gauge on its entire network.
Did anyone travel here travel on the prototype unit?
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Can’t say I remember it, but didn’t start working in That London until '91.
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@stu, when he was in his early 1000’s.
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New GBR livery:
“More than just a paint job[…]”
Yes. In many cases, will this be a simple vinyl wrap?
Anyhoo; it does not look practical and I wonder whether it is suitable for such a diverse fleet…
Personally, I think it looks fucking shit and they’d have been better off with something simple- and easier to apply and repair when shit happens.
Tl:dr I don’t really care about ‘image’ when I am waiting on a cold and windswept platform in the middle of fucking nowhere. Innit.
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It’s naff as fuck Gammon friendly dreck, especially when they piloted stuff like this which neatly blends nostalgia with modernity -
And yeah, all the ‘coloured worms’ are vinyl wrapped 'cos they change ownership more often than I change my adult diapers…
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