Gatwick Airport Railway Station Winter 1996

Trains seen at Gatwick Airport's railway station in winter 1996, with light snow falling and some snow on the station platforms.
The trains seen in this film include:-
Gatwick Express - Class 73 electro-diesel locomotives, Mk2 InterCity carriages, Class 489 GLV - Gatwick Luggage Vans;
Class 319 'Thameslink' electric multiple units (in 2 liveries);
Class 165 (or 166) diesel multiple unit;
Various types of Mk1 electric multiple units;
The inter-terminal automated people-mover "transit".

[@inglian02]

Good to see some slam-door archive material on KZbin. Thanks for uploading.

[@AlexMetroman]

Some nice shots of the toothpaste trains and the old Gatwick Express, I'd love to see a 73 out and about round here and London now there are so few that are used. A nice little video here!

[@TheJPanzer]

Lovely to watch, thank you for uploading, particularly rare to find video footage in that narrow wedge of time just before privatisation. Love the clipped voice of the announcer. The stations could very well be the names of racehorses if he were employed at Ascot!

[@CitytransportInfoplus]

If I'd known about KZbin in those days then I'd probably have filmed a lot more.

[@mattdow9039]

That low pitch hum you hear when the 4CIG pulls out of the station, brought memories flooding back

[@CitytransportInfoplus]

I think thats the electric motors - a lovely sound!

[@metadyneman]

Doors only closed on "first catch" as it was known was a common occurrence on the old slam door stock and it was for this reason why the yellow strip was eventually fitted so that it could be seen by station staff. The remedy if spotted was to give the door a swift kick as it moved away. That wasn't in the rule book but it worked!!

[@peterharvey1762]

Oh look it’s cold and snowing and the trains are still running , testiement to BR traction motors

[@lukeeveleigh2011]

I would have been eighteen when this film was made. It's nice to see what it's like at Gatwick, as I never been there before. Awesome, wintery scene!

[@MarkSmith-tp6zc]

Wintry

[@Vayatir]

Very nice footage! As a regular user of this line, this is of interest to me. In particular, the fact that 319's are still in use here (and were probably the latest thing at the time). They're still used today on the Thameslink route, and I dread every time I have to travel in one of these. They're old and just unpleasant. Also interesting is that you used to be able to travel from Gatwick to Bournemouth, such a thing isn't possible by direct connection anymore! There also appears to be more 12 car trains in service here than there are today... I think there's something wrong with that.

[@graalianlife78lim23]

Good memories - I was on slam door train (Capital Coast Express) in 1995-96. But Class 319 was quickly between Brighton and Farrington (semi-fast (from Brighton) calling Haywards Heath, Gatwick, East Croydon, London Blackfairs, London Bridge, Thameslink City and Farringdon ) than CCE (fast service). I missed all units! Slam doors trains has good smell inside because always cleaning first before service. 👍

[@CitytransportInfoplus]

On a winter's day in 1996 I took my camcorder to Gatwick Airport and stood on the platform filming the trains. I think this answers your question, if not please ask again, in greater detail.

[@metadyneman]

Great stuff and good memories for me. The Gatwick reading services were originally run using Gloucester "Cross Country" Class 119 DMUs and were replaced by Met Camm 101s which were finally ousted by the 166s seen in the vid.

[@TLJOHN2007]

I live in Wales now, but when I was a wee lad I frequently used the slammers between Gillingham and Maidstone (with the change at Strood). I used to call them toothpaste trains because they were the same colours as Aquafresh lol. Sadly the only railway remnants of my childhood are the Metro Camell 465's with the (as I called them) "Formula 1" engines. Damn, getting all nostalgic now. :-)

[@alexsmith5083]

i remember hearing at london bridge and victoria many trains not stopping at gatwick during peak hrs to allow more commuters to head home on less busy trains now today every train calls at gatwick during peak hours

[@CitytransportInfoplus]

yes... Riga, Canada, Switzerland, Cyprus, and probably more. But Gatwick is not my nearest airport, and its expensive to reach compared with Heathrow which is in London.

[@metadyneman]

Not quite right there. The fast slam door trains seen running through are made up of 2 x class 421 4-CIG and one Class 422 4-BIG unit. The seating units were identical in both apart from in the 422 the Trailer Open Second was replaced with a trailer Buffet... hence the C bring replaced by a B in the BIG. The first fast train we see in this vid is headcode 4 which is the down fast Victoria-Brighton service. The same headcode was used by the famous Brighton Belle until April 1967.

[@MasterOfDickery]

Love the old gat exp. wish Hornby would release it as a model.

[@wharris302]

those trains enter the platform faster than I thought they would they had to be doing like 40 wow, and those high speed one slam doors where doing like 100moh maybe ?!?

[@CitytransportInfoplus]

+dennis trident william the slam door trains did not hang about... I'm not sure what the line speed is but even today there are some trains which do not stop at this station - and they fly through at full pelt!

[@gwydionmcdarren1825]

They could only do 90 at best an I think they were probably nearer 70/80

[@jhclausen]

Max speed 90 for the slam doors. The fast train 45 seconds in was probably doing about 90 as it's downhill from the M25 to Gatwick.

[@MrGriser]

The slam door trains running non-stop throught the station are Class 422 BIG's I think they are virtually the same as Class 421 CIGs but were given a slightly different interior as they were dedicated for the Brighton Coastal Express service and this would have been their last year in service before Class 319's took over what do you know about the BIG units?

[@still_guns]

I heard a an announcement for Network SouthCentral. They were closed following privatisation, so this can't be 1996

[@CitytransportInfoplus]

BMWM3GTRLOVER ah but, SouthCentral only came into being when Network SouthEast was broken up into small chunks for privatisation... Connex took over the SouthCentral franchise in May 1996; this was filmed before then.

[@MrGriser]

But earlier in the video they mention Connex South Central are mentioned by the announcer which means this must have been filmed in December 1996

[@martinbitter4162]

When exact was operation transferred to the franchise operators? Wikipedia seems a bit hazy on that.

[@still_guns]

@@martinbitter4162 1997 I think.

[@TheKinggeorge18]

The Last train in that vid is class 422 4big?

[@AndrewTiffin]

Some of the slam door units in this video have been branded as Network SouthCentral

[@tanahmed98]

how do you get this footage?

[@CitytransportInfoplus]

yes, well that would be correct for this era - when Network SouthEast was split up but before the various services were privatised.

[@jackashley-price5822]

@4:24 does the announcement say ‘Bournemouth and Littlehampton? Very strange service to be running on the Brighton main line but pre southern/south western could make sense?

[@CitytransportInfoplus]

This was 1996 and very soon after privatisation had happened. The Bournemouth service would have been far more useful for airport passengers than going to Central London.

[@ace-paidinfull5240]

Is there any branch off possible, or would this service have to go via brighton? And even now there isn’t exactly a bournemouth service from brighton..

[@jackashley-price5822]

@@ace-paidinfull5240 technically is possible without Brighton yeah, via the Cliftonville Curve or the Arun Valley Line. Wouldn’t be in any form a serviceable and/or profitable route though, that’s for sure 😂

[@jackashley-price5822]

@@ace-paidinfull5240 and in regards to Brighton-Bournemouth, the journey is only one change so not necessarily a bad journey regardless

[@ace-paidinfull5240]

@@jackashley-price5822 off the top of my head knowledge, would that be via christchurch by any chance?

[@CitytransportInfoplus]

But the toothpaste that I use does not have stripes! LOL

[@CitytransportInfoplus]

possibly, I was never an expert on these trains - which is why I did not try to identify them!

[@AlexMetroman]

That's their nickname, toothpaste trains, because of the livery! Haha.

[@Foxys-Collective-Videography]

Did Southern Trains exist in 1996? And did First Great Western Trains exist in 1996?

[@CitytransportInfoplus]

Foxy313 I suspect that Connex SouthCentral had the franchise now owned by Southern. I feel sure that First Group had the Western Region franchise at that time.

[@Foxys-Collective-Videography]

citytransportinfo And what did you like about the year 1996?

[@tobysummers471]

citytransportinfo yes they were the very much hated great western trains they had the merlin livery on the hsts.As for the 166 it was under a separate franchise then under a company called thames trains. They merged franchises in 2006

[@CitytransportInfoplus]

toothpaste? LOL Alex, I guess you mean the Network SouthEast livery!

[@Milesy]

What was that at 3:05?

[@CitytransportInfoplus]

The inter-terminal transit. This links the north and the south airport terminals. Fully automated driverless train.

[@Milesy]

citytransportinfo Ahh thank you. That is really cool.

[@owenchuarbx]

Is the inter terminal transit train consisted of 3 Bombardier C100/CX100 Cars?

[@MarkSmith-tp6zc]

That’s what I noticed too

[@TerryClarkAccordioncrazy]

The irony was Gatwick was a second tier airport relative to Heathrow but it had a proper train station which Heathrow did not. Anyone who'd taken the poxy bus from Woking to Heathrow will know it was a miserable experience, and the massively overpriced Heathrow express improved nothing. Sadly UK never quite gets transport infrastructure right. Then you go to Amsterdam, walk straight from plane to train and think wow, its that simple.

[@aidanlee8804]

Agreed, I think it’s because there are so many laws protecting the countryside, it’s impossible to build new lines around that area of Surrey. It’s a nightmare. I remember I’d have to go Frensham >> Woking by taxi (no trains early morning) Woking to Heathrow on the coach. The biggest problem was when I got to St. Petersburg/Kiev on the other side, their transport links are even worse to the airport. It would literally take a day door to door, even though the flight is 3 hours. 🤬

[@steveluckhurst2350]

Southend is perfect.