Purple Hayes: Hayes and Harlington

[@herseem]

Jago, can you please do a video about why new railway companies needed acts of parliament? That's something I've never been clear about.

[@eddisstreet]

In order to acquire land and/or build tracks across private land and an of parliament was required - a Private Bill had to be promoted (a Private Bill is not the same as a Private Members Bill). Those effected by the proposals have the right to petition against the Bill and if a settlement cannot be reached a Committee of the Commons and/or the Lords will decide on the merits of the Bill and of the Petition(s). Barristers are usually employed by both sides. The Legislation changed in the early 1990s. There used to be a different sort of legislation required for light railways.

[@herseem]

@@eddisstreet Ok, thanks, I thought it might be something a bit like that. I expect Jago will come up with a lot more information surrounding the subject though.

[@DanielsPolitics1]

You can get orders under TGWA 1990, but some things still need their own bill. You can also bundle compulsory purchase into a development consent order. Compulsory purchase itself is also available under planning powers if the local council agrees to do so.

[@ohpurpled]

It's sad in a way, and we could debate what it means for ‘democracy’, but over the years more and more of what was Parliament's sovereign power has been delegated to the government of the day, and where previously there would be to and fro in the Commons over what conditions should be attached to various permissions (in the case of railways this might include things like minimum service, fare limits, …), it's now often largely down to the whims of an individual minister.

[@slidefirst694]

Creosote is underrated as an industrial material.

[@voytee1112]

I grew up in Hayes and the smell of coffee before/after it rained from Nestle is one of those sensations that you wish you could record. Smelling Nescafé makes me think of that still.

[@hb1338]

Callard and Bowser at the end of Pump Lane was another smell I remember from the area.

[@robv7340]

Give me the smell of coffee any day over the stench of tarmac As that’s what you get these days

[@lovasip]

As a tourist I must say bringing the Elizabeth line here was a good idea. You can get to the city center in like half an hour but don't have to pay half a leg for a hotel.

[@phaasch]

Immediate uptick on "purple Hayes"!

[@BomberFletch31]

When I visited London back in 2018, I stayed at the hotel that was right next to Hayes & Harlington station. Much cheaper than hotels in central London, and Paddington was easily accessible by train. Hayes & Harlington was a construction site then, parts of the old station building was still being used, and there was lots of temporary fencing erected around the building site. It's good to see that the new building is now complete. I really enjoyed this trip down memory lane. Thank you, Jago.

[@waddsbadds]

My brother lived in the area for 40+ years so I have departed from the Hayes and Harlington station a number of times. One interesting aspect of Hayes is its connection with British author George Orwell. For about a year in 1932-33 he taught at the Hawthorns High School for Boys in Hayes. The building still stands , is now the Fountain House Hotel and bears a blue plaque commemorating Orwell's having taught there. Also, to illustrate Jago's mentioning of the industry that once thrived in Hayes, Orwell published, in the Adelphi magazine, around the same time he was living and teaching in Hayes, the poem, "On a ruined farm near the His Master's Voice gramophone factory." The poem even mentions the trains in one line.

[@andrewdolinskiatcarpathian]

I remember Hayes from the 1970’s, as a town very much based upon workers going to Nestle, EMI, Callard & Bowser and other household names. All long gone.

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

There still is some freight activity at Hayes...... just to the east of the station, on the Up side is a Tarmac aggregate distribution terminal. I have spent many an hour there, sitting on my loco while it was unloaded, one wagon at a time, through the hopper house..... happy days!

[@mickeydodds1]

The 1920s and 30s saw a huge amount of industrial development in this part of west London, or Middlesex to be more precise. In particular the area seemed to specialise in what was termed 'light industry', that is consumer products in the new electrical and precision mechanical industries. Not too distant was the so called 'Golden Mile', that stretch of the Great West Road populated by such firms as Hoover and Gillette, which was claimed to be the highest revenue generating piece of real estate in the UK. That legacy lingered on until the 1970s.

[@TheScillonian3]

This is my local station and having lived in Hayes since 1970, I have seen plenty of changes. Back in the 70s, Hayes and Harlington's off peak services consisted of 2 all stations trains between Slough and Paddington, reduced to one train an hour on Sundays. There trains were only 3 coaches too.

[@krono9451]

It feels odd to have your local station covered by Jago. It's like an alternative universe.

[@dangerousandy]

Hayes & Harlington Station was the very first place I ever went train spotting. I was born in Hillingdon, and lived in the area until 1989. I have loads of photographs of the station (and some VHS footage) from the early 80s until the mid 90s. I can’t believe how much it has changed. I now live in Scotland, but the last time I was at Hayes & Harlington Station was back in 2012, when I passed through on a HST on my way to Paddington for my 30th birthday 😂

[@kdisley]

Purple Hayes, all in my brain, It's where I catch my West Drayton train, Now I'm hungry and I don't know why, 'Scuse me while I eat this pie...

[@mcarp555]

And of course, the EMI factory in Hayes was responsible not only for building much of the recording equipment (much of it still in use) at Abbey Road studios, it's where the majority of their records were pressed.

[@julianaylor4351]

Í have old EMI LPs with the name and address of their factory on the packaging.

[@hb1338]

I worked on that site for nearly eight years. One of the buildings next to the railway was known as the Cabinet Factory because that is where the cabinets for the radiograms were made. I was one of the team which used to transport the world's first digital tape recorder between CRL (Central Research Labs) and Abbey Road studios. From the mid 1970s, most of the records were actually pressed at the factory in Springfield Road, but the company's head office remained on Blyth Road

[@Gerry0866]

This station has a connection to where I live in Ireland - Portarlington, Co Laois. In 1664, Sir Henry Bennet was created Baron Arlington of Harlington in Middlesex. He had also been granted the lands confiscated from the O’Dempsey clan after the 1641 rebellion in Ireland, in what was then known as King’s County and Queen’s County (today’s counties Offaly and Laois). In 1666 he founded the borough of Port-Arlington, named after his barony in Middlesex, on what was the existing settlement of Cooltoodery. There is a good railway connection here too, as Portarlington is where the line from Dublin Heuston branches off to the south and west. The station was built as part of the Great Southern and Western Railway in 1847.

[@johnm2012]

It's my nearest Elizabeth line station, accessed by the SL9 bus. The electrification that happened in the 1990s was only for the benefit of the Heathrow airport services. All other trains using the station were diesel until the GWR electrification in the 2010s. My nearest railway station though is Northolt Park, which would be a very worthy subject for a Jago video.

[@fetchstixRHD]

Earlier than that, Heathrow Connect...

[@johnm2012]

@@fetchstixRHD "Heathrow airport services" includes Heathrow Connect, which started in 2005, after Heathrow Express but before the GWR intercity and local services were electrified.

[@dotkomist]

Jago, you have outdone yourself with that title. Bravo.

[@AaronOfMpls]

Purple Hayes is on my train Many things just don't seem the same Singin' punny, don't know why 'Scuse me, while I kiss this guy! - 🎸- Purple trains are all around Don't know if they're going Up or Down Am I moving, or station'ry? Whatever it is, that Jago put a spell on me! - 🎸-

[@Andrewjg_89]

The Elizabeth Line has ordered another 10 Class 345 trains to add the total of 9-Car trains on the Elizabeth Line from 70 to 80 Class 345 9-Car trains. And is expected to enter service from next year.

[@keitholding8541]

On the subject of recognising the canopy, is there a particular reason why old stations all seem to have canopies that have that wooden 'fringed' look? The fringes have a wide variety of shapes (straight and pointed, with curved ends, fancy curves etc), but for some reason that 'fringe' shouts, "This is a railway building". It is as though every builder of railway stations used to think, "This is what a railway building must look like, we cannot build a station without a fringe".

[@Paul-vz4cc]

They're called Daggerboards I think and they help to keep rain off the platform etc. I used to call them Bargeboards but i understand they're slightly different. The dangly bits (dagger shaped,, curved or fancy) encourage rain to drip off and not sit on the underside where it could rot the wood. Different companies had different designs. Hope this is helpful.

[@markhughes2556]

This very much counts as a fringe interest.

[@keitholding8541]

@@Paul-vz4cc Very helpful, thank you. I wonder if many other buildings had them, but railway buildings are more likely to have survived.

[@keitholding8541]

@@markhughes2556 Lol 😂

[@stephenspackman5573]

Wooden buildings. Delayed trains. Bored carpenters.

[@eattherich9215]

Purple hayes, the estate of Prince would like a word. 😁

[@brettpalfrey4665]

Maybe Jimi Hendrix too...

[@6yjjk]

Wilson Phillips...

[@makkari1]

Yessss!!!!! I got it. You are the Harlington to my Hayes! That's, what 4 out of 832?

[@MartinAtkinsQ]

My grandparents used to live in that red brick housing estate that was on the left edge of your shot of the canal, so I was there a lot as a kid. Seems like the Elizabeth Line rebuilt the station considerably compared to what I remember. The locals used to pronounce "Nestle" as "nessels", which always seemed quite charming to me.

[@MarcelosalivaTRENESArg]

Excellent video my friends awesome 😮like 👍🏻 and Greeting 🙋

[@stevewalker8201]

As ex pat Londoner in Australia enjoying your entertainment I am learning to add the good and bad aromas from my memories. Thank you for your efforts.

[@Torquemada70]

Maybe those grim biuldings were constructed under a cloud of 'we'd better save money or they'll wheel out Beeching again'

[@ijmad]

The Western section of the Elizabeth Line isn't that pretty but the stations are functional and capacious with full step free access. That's more can be said that for most of the Underground, no matter how pretty some of the stations may be.

[@johnodonnell1506]

My local railway station these days, well, if can call two and a half miles away local in London. I could definitely do with the district line stopping there these days, as I often have to work in Westminster.

[@mistywolf312]

Ok you got me, Purple Hayes snuck up om me and made me audibly groan 👍 Well done !

[@MattNav]

Another quirky use of Hayes and Harlington is to avoid the Elizabeth line Heathrow surcharge somewhat. Touching out and back in at H&H on a journey from zone 1 means you can get an off peak fare

[@SDCentralTSV]

Wait really? How does that work? I know the cheat on the Piccadilly line, where you should touch in an out of Hatton Cross since Hatton Cross is included in the Heathrow free travel area.

[@MattNav]

@@SDCentralTSV so whilst it's not free like the Piccadilly line trick, it does cut down the cost a bit. And if you're wanting to save even more money, you can always grab a bus from H&H to Heathrow Central bus station if you're willing to spend a little bit longer to get the price down

[@SDCentralTSV]

@@MattNav oh yes, the Superloop.

[@Maldoror42]

It's over 20 years since I lived in Dorney but I can still remember the stops from Taplow to Paddington, although I'd normally change at Slough for a faster train that skipped H&H and all the stations to Ealing Broadway.

[@MrGreatplum]

Excellent, Jago. If I’m ever going west on the Elizabeth line, I can now regale my fellow travellers with interesting factoids about this station!

[@DavidShepheard]

I might be in the group of people who thinks that Crossrail is not a London Underground Line. (And I certainly think it is not a Tube Line, as it does not use Tube Line sized stock.) But I do think that Crossrail has achieved what Charles Yerkes was attempting to do with the Metropolitan District Railway. Yerkes might have been a bit of a knob head and the London County Council might have snipped off branches of both the Metropolitan Railway and Metropolitan District Railway to rationalise them somewhat. But Crossrail goes back to being a "BIG" railway, that goes through London. I think that Brunel, Yerkes and Watkins would all be happy to get on a train at Hayes and Harlington and see that the concept that each one of them worked on is pulling in one sixth of all the railway journeys in Great Britain.

[@superlynx98]

i think it's a tube because the tunnels look like tubes 🤪

[@Saint_Dan132]

insightful, informative and enjoyable, thanks jago

[@lefthandedspanner]

the first time I heard about this Hayes was in an old Denis Norden story on "My Word!" about a soldier purposefully trying to get dismissed due to his over-literal interpretation of orders: "Your last order, Tozer," the C.O. said coldly, "was to stand at ease." "With respect, sir, that was not what the Sargeant Major said. If, sir, you would request the Sargeant Major to repeat the order exactly as he uttered it, sir?" The C.O., just a man, nodded at the Sargeant Major. The S.M. cleared his throat obediently. Then, in traditional manner, he bellowed - "Squa-hod... squad... stand at... hayes!" "Exactly, sir. And Hayes is a small town in Middlesex, not far from London Airport. That was where I proceeded to go and stand, sir. As I received no orders rescinding that instruction, sir, I have been standing there these past seven days." They had no alternative but to acquit and release him. The Army is possibly the last bastion of literalism, particularly with respect to what it calls 'words of command'.

[@dhirun4]

You can really feel the difference with fewer and higher quality videos, I think it’s been a great success.

[@BassandoForte]

Purple Haze has a beautiful effect - Quite uplifting and mellow, especially if you vape it... 👍

[@julianaylor4351]

I can hear Jimi Hendrix playing guitar in my head, because of your title. Yes, he was big when I was a kid. 😁

[@maestroazzey]

Stayed near the station last year between Christmas and New Year's Day. Have to say it's very convenient located between Heathrow and the City. Especially now the Liz Line runs through it, making the travel time very competitive. Downside of this all will mean that in a few years time prices in this part of London will skyrocket as well. Not that real estate agents would complaint of course.

[@stuartmcconnachie]

5:43 “This is it!”. Yes often, but with a silent SH.

[@peter_smyth]

I know the station wuite well from transferring there heading to/from Heathrow from the west, but I've never seen the entrance to it.

[@rowland5951]

You need to do West Drayton to Uxbridge and Staines West branch line.

[@steve.b.23]

Staines. You missed the "e". Although, as someone who's lived here my entire life, you could also drop the "s" and you'd be close to the truth. : )

[@BoraCM]

I agree.

[@FlyingScott]

Jago's little "... Bizarre..." is an emotion I feel on an hourly basis.

[@katrinabryce]

It has changed a lot since I worked there about 20 years ago. 👵🏻

[@rwm2986]

Thanks Jago. Does 'bare minimum architecture' equate to 'bare minimum cost'?

[@MartinWL1]

Around 10 years ago the ugly building on the bridge shown in the video ceased to house the ticket office and a new ticket office was opened in the old station building on platform 4. There was a small waiting area, something that isn't available now for up passengers. The facilities were basic but adequate.. Tfl has built a grand edifice that looks good but doesn't offer many amenities. There is no heated waiting room eastbound. Although there is a route from platforms 4/5 to the street on the level, the only route allowed is via stairs. Worst of all between Network Rail and TfL the former turning circle alongside the up platform building, now gone, is no longer available and it has become very difficult indeed to drop off or pivk up a passenger by car. It could all have been done better for less cost.

[@ianhalsall-fox]

My station for when I go to the narrowboat. That or West Drayton. From Bath, change at Reading. Simples!

[@psammiad]

I remember it being called Hayes (Middlesex).

[@martinprosser8521]

There is a feature wall on the public side in the style of the original station. You showed the back of this by the bay platform. The design of the new building was made a bit complicated by the requirement to have a night gate to allow entry / exit to the platforms without going through the ticket hall.

[@bujler]

I used to live in Hayes, and I'm amazed that they changed to station and made it even worse.

[@malcolmgibson6288]

Nice to see my local heritage line at Bury Bolton St again.

[@hb1338]

I lived and worked in Hayes between 1978 and 1985. My memory is that the station building was the original one (very similar to the one at Southall that you showed) until some time after I moved away, perhaps the mid 1990s. I would be interested if anyone can clarify whether my memory is faulty or whether Jago has made a small error. It's staggering how much the station and the nearby buildings have changed. BTW, in my day nobody that used the station *ever* called it Hayes and Harlington - it was always just Hayes.

[@birdbrain4445]

Not a station I've used before personally - it's interesting to see how it's changed so much over the decades. The only Hayes I know is the one at the end of that there branch line in Bromley, the Underground station that... well, you know the whole story there. I do sometimes wonder how things would have panned out if broad gauge won out in the Gauge Wars. I mean, higher capacity and more power - both of these are good things to have. In the age of modern day commuting, I think that would have really paid dividends, having larger carriages to work with. One of those great what-ifs of railway history; the network here today and indeed across the world perhaps would look very different, but also history would have had to have played out differently fundamentally for broad gauge to become the standard, so. Very much a hypothetical. Also, I didn't know there was such a debate on if the Elizabeth Line is an Underground line or not - I thought it was pretty clear cut. I never considered it one personally, though I appreciate it's a bit of an odd hybrid line in many respects, so I understand the ambiguity. Great video!

[@richardeyers322]

as aiways very good keep them coming.

[@Zak00]

Funnily enough there’s a gang in Hayes called purple Hayes

[@rowland5951]

Back in the day not anymore.

[@MichaelCampin]

Is its leader named Prince

[@MichaelCampin]

@@tremensdelirious 🤣🤣🤣

[@bostonrailfan2427]

@@MichaelCampinits founder was some guy named Hendrix

[@BassandoForte]

It's a strain of weed... 😉

[@nathanw9770]

Weirdly out of both the Hayes stations this is the one that isn't announced with it's historic county even though it is further out of London than Hayes in Bromley.

[@fetchstixRHD]

Probably because the station has Harlington in its name as well, which should theoretically be enough to distinguish it from the "Kent" one...

[@nathanw9770]

@@fetchstixRHD Exactly

[@ianpatterson6552]

Lazy, Hayes days of Summer.

[@davidfuller5344]

Thank you for your informative vlog, Could you do a vlog on Ewer st between London Bridge/ Cannon st and Waterloo / Blackfriars . I remember people talking about it when I joined the railway in the late 1960's but I don't know much about it.

[@ukroadsandtransport]

Yesterday I was surrounded by GWR branding due to that new station opening and i loved it

[@dougmhd2006]

Seeing "Harlington" reminded me of the following 'fun fact': In Gerry Anderson's sci-fi TV series, "UFO", a 'false-front' film studio called "Straker-Harlington Studios" was the secret location of SHADO (Supreme Headquarters-Alien Defence Organization).👽🌕

[@CaseyJonesNumber1]

It was actually Harlington-Straker (I remember UFO...Lieutenant Gay Ellis (Gabrielle Drake) ❤

[@dougmhd2006]

@@CaseyJonesNumber1 Thanks for the correction. I get things jumbled up in my mind now and then.😊

[@cefnonn]

I can't get enthusiastic about those fast, new EMU's and all that ugly catenary. I saw 50022 "Anson" pounding through in about 1985. It made a terrible racket! Thanks, great video especially the old photo of Broad Gauge locos waiting for the scrap man.

[@Jimyjames73]

Yes I enjoyed today's Video as ever Jago 😉🚂🚂🚂

[@eggyboy123]

Brunel's gauge was the better gauge

[@Inkyminkyzizwoz]

Yes, but unfortunately far more lines had been built to what's now the standard gauge and so it was easier to convert Brunel's lines to it than the other way round. (I suppose it was probably also easier to convert the broader gauge to the narrower one anyway, given that widening the track would've involved widening all the other infrastructure as well, such as bridges and tunnels, not to mention that narrower gauge lines can go round tighter curves than broader gauge ones)

[@AaronOfMpls]

@@Inkyminkyzizwoz > not to mention that narrower gauge lines can go round tighter curves than broader gauge ones Indeed, which is why narrower gauges (3ft 6in, 1 meter, 3 feet, etc) were common on quite a few mountain branchlines around the world. And mines and construction sites used even narrower gauges internally.

[@hb1338]

.. and Betamax was very much better in all ways than VHS, but the latter was the first to reach the market.

[@AaronOfMpls]

@@hb1338 Betamax was out first though -- 1975 vs 1976. And VHS, while "worse" in some ways (like picture quality on the highest tape speed), was _better_ in others (like total runtime, and the physical design of the cassette). It was more freely and widely licensed, and its shortcomings weren't bad enough to matter. Technology Connections has done a few videos on the whole thing -- like the clever design of VHS cassettes, and more detail on why Betamax lost out.

[@hb1338]

@@AaronOfMpls Interesting - a friend of mine used to repair video recorders as a sideline to his day job. He said that VHS machines were much less reliable and much more prone to problems caused by deformed or damaged cassettes. Obviously his sample size was small and not randomly chosen.

[@Mark.Andrew.Pardoe]

Whato Jago, You didn't mention there's a Harlington station in Bedfordshire so you can travel from Hayes to Harlington via Hayes & Harlington. Well you can but it would be a silly thing to do.

[@brianfretwell3886]

I always get Hayes & Harlington mixed up with Harington on the Midland Main line station near Bedford, between Leagrave and Flitwick.

[@tantaf123]

sunday is always great when you’re watching the newest jago video

[@temy4895]

Would that make Kent Hayes Green Hayes?

[@davidstone408]

Jago - watching this after Mr Marshall’s new GWR Station video where he talks about the next GWR station coming in 2025 the 200th year of the railways and it being the 200th GWR Station, well that just because so many stations were destroyed by Beeching.

[@stephenpegum9776]

Many years ago I came up to London from S Wales for a job interview with EMI that you mention at around 4:00 Jago. So I caught a local train out to H&H from Paddington thinking I could get a taxi from the station to EMI's offices. Just one problem - back then there was NO taxi service at that station ! So much to my embarrassment I had to call the company & cancel. Epic fail !! 🤬

[@hb1338]

It was no more than a four minute walk from the station to any of the EMI buildings on Blyth Road. Did you not consult an A-Z ?

[@stephenpegum9776]

@@hb1338 I simply hadn't heard of A to Z's back then !!

[@teecefamilykent]

Another cracking video sir, btw the Elizabeth line is a national rail line NOT an underground line lol.

[@keda1981]

As an ITV history buff, I find it fascinating that BET and EMI were both based here, given how the birth of Thames Television panned out.

[@SteampunkGent]

With dad jokes like "purple hayes" like that you'll make doves cry

[@vac65]

Never mind... But please mind the gap!

[@arthurvasey]

I’m partying like it’s 1999 in my little red Corvette over that! Channel 5’s only homegrown soap Family Affairs was shot there!

[@NormaStitz-w1f]

Think you might be getting Purple Haze (Hendrix) mixed up with Purple Rain (Prince).

[@arthurvasey]

@@NormaStitz-w1f Probably am - but I was really thinking of a version made for a Geoff Marshall video based on Purple Rain called Purple Train!

[@AaronOfMpls]

Sadly "Purple Hayes" has no trains to Electric Ladyland.

[@JM-ll2vv]

I love Hayes I drive my little red corvette there all the time

[@jon6815]

Love Jimi Hendrix too Jago!

[@reemasajida]

great channel

[@stephenspackman5573]

I believe that what determines whether something is an underground line is (a) whether it is a line and (b) whether it is under ground. I advise paying close attention to the position of the moon, since it often holds the casting vote.

[@hb1338]

How much of the line has to be underground ? It's a long way from Chesham and Amersham to the nearest full underground section of the Met.

[@TheEulerID]

EMI at Hayes was responsible for the first ever production CAT (now called CT) scanner in 1971, which was considered to be a huge medical breakthrough at the time, but largely displaced by MRI scanners in medicine, which can produce 3D scans without using harmful X-rays. The inventor, Godfrey Hounsfield won a Nobel Prize for his development. Sadly EMI were unable to withstand competition from Siemens and American manufacturers and pulled out of the market.

[@hb1338]

The US government imposed a special import tax on the CT scanner in order to protect its' home market for the American manufacturers (Union Carbide was one).

[@BJWT1047]

The Elizabeth Line is not a light rail London Underground line. It is a heavy rail main line that goes underground in the central section. Pedantic rant over.

[@neilbain8736]

When I first went to France, I was taken by the concrete architecture and developed the notion that the French could make concrete look good and we failed. I think it goes further than that to something more fundamental in the psyche. I wonder if we got the wrong end of Corbusier's stick.

[@ThorinWolf]

Brunel! I did a mini-project on him when I was much younger, haven't heard that name in so very long.

[@johnm2012]

He hasn't been so busy in recent years.

[@jason__7]

As someone who *does* think of the Elizabeth Line as an underground line, it is VERY annoying getting out of Heathrow and making your way to the tube exit, only to find out there's no Elizabeth Line trains there and you've got to trek all the way back up to the terminal and across! 😭

[@genevincentrocks]

I think that church has a mural (mosaic?) designed by Alec Issigonis, of Austin Mini fame?

[@hi-viz]

"If you insist the Elizabeth line is an Underground line, you're wrong"

[@mrshannonite4016]

My grandmother's sister used to work at the EMI building, we'd occasionally get free records, which was fun. We were still waiting for her to work at a chocolate factory right up until she died, boy did she let us down, LOL.

[@hb1338]

There were lots of EMI buildings on that site - in my day (early 80s) the count was at least 9. LPs were abut half price in the staff shop and (joy of joys) you could order anything from the catalogue and it would arrive within a week.

[@DalstonVinyl]

To be pedantic, the large factory in Hayes in the 20s and 30s was HMV, not EMI...EMI was a much later name given to the business. Cheers!

[@hb1338]

Not exactly. EMI was the parent company and it was created around 1930, and it made both recordings and the equipment to play them. HMV was the name of its' main record label. All the various buildings around Blyth Road were always part of EMI.

[@paulanderson7796]

Heathrow Express is a monumental rip off. I've only ever used it for going between LHR's terminals - this is free. I also find amusing the idea of buying tickets in advance, in return for which you'll receive a discount. Quite how anyone can be sure than their flights will be on time is silly. There's another aspect as well. If I buy a ticket at 2:02 PM and then board a train at 2:04 PM, does that not qualify as being "in advance"?

[@englishciderlover7347]

Mile for mile, Heathrow Express is the most expensive rail journey in Europe,, apparently. I'd use the Liz or the Pic to get from Heathrow to central London.

[@fetchstixRHD]

As far as I remember though, these are slightly different to the "usual" railway advance tickets, in that you can use any train on the day, rather than being restricted to a specific train. At least on leaving the country, it does seem a bit more reasonable, as you're likely to have booked the flight you'd want far ahead enough to make use of it (but very barely, if you're needing to catch another train to get to Paddington to the first place, that's a bit of inconvenience added...)

[@rick11960]

Heathrow Express :Built by the airport company [BAA ] competes with Taxi's rather than the Underground.

[@DavidShepheard]

7:10 That comment is not going to stop them Jago. 🤪

[@JamesPetts]

I suspect that they thought not so much "this is it" but "this will do".

[@andrewhotston983]

The lifts at Hayes and Harlington are the slowest in London.

[@misolgit69]

BITD I bet travelling past the creosoting works was fun 😇

[@PokhrajRoy.]

Jago throwing shade at architecture >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

[@nirgunapa56]

I have a half full jack of creosote in my shed that I occasionally take out to smell. Does that make me weird? Forty years ago how we splashed it on our newly constructed fences unaware that it would be found to be carcinogenic!

[@philiptaylor7902]

Any other Hendrix themed stations - "The Wind Cries Marylebone" ?

[@stephenorton4041]

No mention of Harlington, near Luton ?

[@birkjas1656]

Does anyone know why Trains from Wales don't stop at Hayes for Heathrow Airport passengers ?

[@thomasburke2683]

They can get a bus from Slough or Reading.

[@MartinWL1]

This is a very good point actually. Given the importance of Heathrow as a destination and that there is now a frequent train service from Hayes to the airport there is a case to be made for long-distance services to stop. It seems daft that rail-link coach services from Reading still operate to Heathrow.

[@birkjas1656]

It seems even more daft for a proposed rail link from Slough to Heathrow costing £millions . When GWR express trains could simply stop at Hayes.

[@JW1_1]

Speaking of big railway lines Jago, could you please do a video on the now withdrawn London cross-link, if you haven’t already? Would love to hear your thoughts on that.

[@huwprice881]

As I sit crammed into the tiny seats, lousy legroom and non existent shoulder room of a X Country class 221, I can't help but dream about what a broad gauge train would offer in the way of space and refinement. Brunel had it right.

[@ianmcclavin]

It still seems strange having sleek electric trains all the way to Abbey Wood and Shenfield after the clanky old diesels multiple units of the seventies and early eighties.

[@sheltie777]

I absolutely agree with your observation about that modern looking station building. IMHO it is ugly beyond all description with zero imagination or creativity. I can only assume someone wanted to save money. But it is popular and examples are everywhere. Which I think is sad.

[@arunsubramanian8162]

Dear Jago, please do a video on Feltham.

[@Wildcard71]

Now we need a video about Hayes (Kent).

[@richardwaters7770]

More than 50 years ago I lived in West Wickham, one stop short of Hayes, Kent. A video about this line would be welcomed.