We’ve all travelled on an Intercity 125 – Britain’s own original high-speed train. It rules the rails today, but this national icon is set to give way to hi-tech imports. It’s time to celebrate the heroic story of a design classic that saved Britain’s railways from terminal decline.
Engineers and designers overcame formidable foes, from British Rail management to football hooligans, the rail unions and soggy BR sandwiches to produce the world’s fastest diesel train. Prue Leith, Peter Purves and Pete Waterman have inside stories to tell, along with designer Sir Kenneth Grange and the engineers that built Britain’s favourite train.
Intercity 125 trains slipped quietly into service in 1976. With British Rail in the doldrums, there was no fanfare, but this brilliant piece of engineering and design would go on to redefine the way we travel.
It slashed journey times, but also set new standards in travel comfort, luxury and reliability with its sleek lines and spacious style that can never be matched again. The 125 attracted a new generation of passengers to the train, saved British Rail from terminal decline, and continues in daily front line service forty years on. Only now as it’s successors begin to arrive from Japan, are those in the know waking up to what they will soon miss.
The Intercity 125 is the work horse of Britain’s railways but it was never meant to be more than a stop- gap. Now, 42 years after the 125’s launch, its slowly being phased out.
This episode celebrates Britain’s first high speed train and reveals how a canny marketing campaign persuaded the great British public to come back to the railways.
Chef Prue Leith explains how banishing the soggy sarnie from British Rail was key to revitalizing the railways' fortunes and Peter Purves and Michael Cole look back on the disastrous launch of the 125’s rival- the tilting train
| Executive Producers | Carlo Massarella , Fred Hepburn |
| Production Executive | Ben Sutton |
| Archive Producer | Carmen Locke |
| Production Manager | Angela Murray |
| Production Coordinator | Jeremy Parkinson |