Railways Illustrated – May 2023
English | 86 pages | pdf | 58.7 MB
Welcome at Railways Illustrated Magazine May 2023 Issue
The announcement at the beginning of March that CrossCountry is to dispense with its fleet of High Speed Trains has attracted much attention. The HSTs are used on long-dis-tance services across the CrossCountry network and have been in use with the operator since 2008, just after Arriva took over the franchise in November 2007. They are expected to be gone by October.
No one is denying that the HSTs have served the railway well during their lifetime, but most of the power cars and Mk.3 coaches that operate with them are now more than 40 years old and they are increasingly expensive to maintain.
Maintenance is carried out at Plymouth Laira depot by Great Western Railway, but as GWR is also now running down its remaining HST Castle Class sets, there was a certain amount of inevita-bility that CrossCountry would follow suit. Soon, ScotRail will be the last operator to regularly use the HSTs on daily Inter7City passenger services, and these too are on borrowed time.
What is slightly concerning about the decision is that it appears the loss of the HSTs will not lead to other trains being cascaded to CrossCountry, with the operator replacing the HSTs from its existing Class 220 Voyager and Class 221 Super Voyager fleets – both of which are already in extensive use on its network, with very little spare capacity.
Without additional rolling stock being provided to replace the HST fleet, this is a clear case of robbing Peter to pay Paul – and those who use CrossCountry services will be subjected to more overcrowded trains as passenger levels continue to increase in the face of fewer and shorter train services as the railway tries to cut costs.
The HSTs have to go eventually – no one is argu-ing with that – but with no replacements being provided, certainly in the short term, it will be the rail user who suffers.
The HSTs must have been one of the most suc-cessful train designs to operate on Britain’s rail network, but their long reign on daily passenger services is now nearing an end. If you are an enthusiast of travelling on the HSTs, the advice is simple – get them while you still can.
Coming up in Railways Illustrated Magazine May 2023 issue
We take a look at the various livery schemes carried by the relatively small Class 67 fleet. Introduced onto the UK rail network by English Welsh and Scottish Railways in 1999/2000, it is hard to believe that this fleet is now rapidly approaching its 25th anniversary.
Martyn Hilbert brings us another fascinating line profile, this time looking at the Preston Docks branch, which is still in use today for freight traf-fic, as well as being the base of the Ribble Steam Railway.
The Southern Electric Traction Group is working hard on the comprehensive restoration and over-haul of the Bluebell Railway’s preserved Class 423 4 VEP EMU 3417 Gordon Pettitt. I was honoured to be invited to Strawberry Hill depot in London to take a look at the progress on what will be a truly stunning project when it is complete.
We also have another excellent selection of images in 10 Pictures, with this month’s collection coming from the lens of enthusiast and photogra-pher David Hill
Andy Coward – Editor
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