Trains in the 1980s - Paddington Station - March 1988

The video opens with a visit to Paddington on Sunday 20th March 1988,, shortly after I bought the Sony camcorder that all my 1988 videos were filmed on. It includes 50 038 Formidable, 50 039 Implacable, 50 043 Eagle and, the always reliable, 50 031 Hood. There is even some HST footage in this section, though I tended to ignore them on later visits.
This second visit, mid-afternoon on the last Sunday in March, saw Class 50s:
017 Royal Oak
031 Hood
033 Glorious
047 Swiftsure
and
47 628 Sir Daniel Gooch in its commemorative GWR livery.
[Note: some of this content has been posted to the channel previously but has been re-edited and converted from 4:3 aspect to 16:9].
00:00 Sunday 20th March 1988
09:47 Sunday 27th March 1988

[@MePeterNicholls]

I’m getting a headache from the diesel fumes, just watching it

[@yebisukuro1003]

Nice video! I had lived in London for 3 yrs. I was a student of Japanese School London at Ealing. HST ran Mainline then, I and my friends shouted “HST is coming! Sounds like Helicopter!”. Over 30yrs passed, my memory is still in my heart, wish visit UK again someday😊

[@OldOakTrains]

Thanks for sharing! Always great to hear how my 1980s videos help bring back memories. 👍😊

[@gbtrains]

Man, so many great memories. Just think of all the great footage we'd have now if there were Go-Pros, Camera phones and Digital Photography

[@CT-pv9gu]

The 50s are so good looking. Make an amazing noise too

[@OldOakTrains]

one of the best looking flat fronted (ie no bonnet) diesels imho.

[@chrisrichmond403]

My favorite of all the diesel locos , Also proud to be a part owner / shareholder in 50021 Rodney.

[@CT-pv9gu]

@@chrisrichmond403 how?! Do you get to take it out on the tracks often?

[@chrisrichmond403]

@@CT-pv9gu At the moment it’s undergoing a bogie overhaul. However it will be out and about at various preserved railways soon .

[@mrvwbug4423]

So different from modern day. I was literally there 3 weeks ago and modern paddington is spotlessly clean with nary a soot stain or smell of diesel. I imagine the station hall back then was full of diesel smoke and soot stains everywhere, also looks very dirty like most cities did back in the 80s.

[@OldOakTrains]

We don’t go to London hardly at all now, but when we do it feels completely alien - where has the London of my youth gone? 😩😩😩 - soot and all ! 😆😆😆. Thanks for commenting 👍👍😊

[@JT29501]

Yeah, as a frequent rail user today I cant feel as nostalgic as most here for these days. Yes the locos are powerful and thats nice but the fumes are disgusting. Modern diesels are bad enough where they are still used! And none of these trains have the romance of the steam engines to make up for their dirtyness. To be fair, Marylebone Station isn't too bad. But its small, which helps. Paddington at peak times, I wouldn't have hung around.

[@JJthrashing]

Brilliant footage so much variety of rolling stock and locos back then, best part was turn around of 50s and 47 going back and forth 😊 best days by far.

[@OldOakTrains]

Many thanks! Glad it brought back memories 👍😊

[@timstrainvideos142]

excellent video! lovely class 50s!

[@OldOakTrains]

Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks. 👍😊

[@TheSmittenman]

Interesting that at the very begining 50043 EAGLE seems to be hauling 1st class only coaches out of the station, and that every train seems to be at least 8 coaches long, which GWR (or whoever) reduced to 7 on their HSTs causing the overcrowding problems much later than this vid. Excellent video 👍

[@OldOakTrains]

Interesting observation. Yes, it did seem counterintuitive to expect 8+ coaches to fit into a new HST, but did they (GWR) increase the frequency of services to address this? Can’t remember? Thanks for your comment- more Paddington shots to come from April& May that year. 😊

[@richardharvey7208]

Hi could I venture an idea, southwest and south Wales are served from Paddington and also Birmingham from Edinburgh Leeds etc. These had 8/coaches purely because of the large cities they served and also the west coast line from Glasgow to Birmingham means the south west could have three trains at any one time serving them including Paddington. Now I heard via Br grape vine that 7 coach HSTs served south wales to Pembrokeshire and some station platforms could not serve any larger train that is the only reason for 7 car sets. I know for a fact GWR station Plymouth Penzance etc can handle 10 plus coaches due to their historic building requirements so the frequency of train played in to the decision they made as well as the smaller HST set. Another interesting fact 8 car sets only had 1 first when introduced where as the GWR set had 2…a more affluent clientele? All best Richard

[@OldOakTrains]

Thanks for the viewpoint- kinda makes sense 😊

[@altt-check1-2]

The good old rail days

[@ChangesOneTim]

@@OldOakTrains I cannot recall BR InterCity Great Western's HST fleet size at that time (40 ish?), but during the late 1980s all the original fleet of 27 sets had a TS added and sets subsequently transferred in were made up 2+8. Indeed there was severe overcrowding by this time and service frequency was increased too. Not sure about any sets being reduced to 2+7. InterCity CrossCountry HSTs always were 2+7, so perhaps in March 1988 some ICGW sets hadn't yet received the extra coach or ICGW occasionally borrowed a ICXC set to cover a failure. You might recall that all ECML sets retained after full electrification KX-Edinburgh were lengthened to 2+9. On summer Saturdays for a few years a 2+9 from that fleet worked a Leeds-Newquay return trip.

[@sardonicus1966]

When the HST’s still had the screaming valenta. Be still my heart. Class 50 was always my favourite though. I lived in West Drayton so they would be going full tilt when they went through the station, you could hear them a mile off! 😍

[@OldOakTrains]

Thanks for sharing!

[@darrenraymond5334]

love the class 50 and the screaming 125's 👍

[@simoncourtney1592]

Anyone else bored of EMU/ DMUs?? I know they are efficient and all, but to me nothing beats a powerful loco!

[@paul_my_plumbs_uk]

There what i bunked off school for 😂😂😂😂😍😍😍😍😍 ❤The 80's 90's 45's at st pancras🎉🎉🎉

[@simoncourtney1592]

@@paul_my_plumbs_uk They were probably rare back then... now they are the only thing I see!

[@mrvwbug4423]

the sounds of the old diesels were nice, but there is something to be said from not getting lung cancer from just being in the station hall haha

[@paul_my_plumbs_uk]

@@mrvwbug4423 long before they introduced no smoking in public places 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@richardharvey7208]

I lost interest in Br locomotives in the 1990s I am building my railway circa 1985-86, not dmu/emu in sight, all loco hauled. My only weak spot are 205/207 Dmu’s they have cut down Class 20 engines and sound really nice, I save up …then I buy a class 50 what to do ? All dmu/emus were classed as BOBS…Buses on Boggies in my day 1970-1980s, think we were spoilt all best Richard

[@jimhoade9265]

Awww! Thanks for this. It's the Paddington i remember when i was young!

[@OldOakTrains]

My pleasure! More Paddington to be uploaded from 1988/89/90 - keep watching 😉

[@norburycrossing3426]

Some superb class 50 action there,thanks for sharing 👍🏻

[@OldOakTrains]

Glad you enjoyed it👍😊

[@MarkGFRex]

Happy Days. I almost forgot how noisy those HST's were back then. I loved spotting in the 80's 👍

[@OldOakTrains]

Same here! but it’s not too awful now - especially more since retirement 😊😊😊

[@MarkGFRex]

@@OldOakTrains I've struggled to get back into it. I pop out when I know a 37, 47, 50, 56 or 73 is heading past the village but I struggle to find interest in the modern stuff. I'll go out of my way to catch a 20 or 40

[@trfcmikey7751]

there's just something about class 50's large logo, that mean look and the rumble sound, love this video, cheers

[@OldOakTrains]

Thanks. Agree, that livery really suited the 50s, more than any other Class IMHO. 👍😊

[@rayhorsnell4895]

Brilliant memories, thanks 👍

[@OldOakTrains]

Glad you enjoyed it👍😊

[@fredphipps9452]

Brings back so many memories, things were never the same once loco hauled trains had disappeared from the Paddington routes. Nowadays I miss travelling in HST's when I go west. Thanks for posting

[@OldOakTrains]

Thanks for commenting, glad you enjoyed it. 👍😊

[@dj_paultuk7052]

The current trains are still HST's ?. I mean they do 125mph all day long. Even the slow trains do 110mph.

[@davewright4380]

Superb footage, man this takes me back to the diesel glory days😊

[@OldOakTrains]

Glad you enjoyed it👍😊

[@MASSspec1990]

I was born in 1990 in Australia. I’ve never been to the UK. Yet somehow, off all the worlds trains, British Rail, in the 70’s and 80’s remains my favourite, with BR Blue and Grey being my favourite paint scheme. NSE and SWT’s liveries don’t look bad either, just not as good as BR Blue!

[@OldOakTrains]

Thanks. If someone had told me back in 1988 when I filmed the blue/grey era that one day someone (who hadn’t even been born yet) would one day be watching and commenting on one of my videos from Australia, I would never had believed them. How technology has changed during my lifetime! Glad you enjoyed it 👍😊😊😊Geoff.

[@LoneSheWolf09]

God I miss the 125s especially on Eastcoast route💔 Just hearing their paxman valenta engine scream when starting up or flying through the station memories❤️ That grey 3 carriage train was that a tube train? Never seen that before

[@OldOakTrains]

Yes it was, but I’ll leave it to others with more knowledge to tell us what type/ class it was 😊😊

[@robbiefstrains9083]

The grey train was a London Transport “C” stock train of six cars working the Hammersmith & City line. At this time, the bodies of these trains was unpainted aluminium and had that grey finish. There were two batches; C69 and C77 built 1969 and 1977 respectively. The C69s had black roofs and the C77s had grey roofs. They could all work interchangeably consisting of three two car units to make a six car train. In one shot in this video you can see a train consisting of two cars of C77 and four cars of C69 as indicated by the different coloured roofs on the same train. C stock was refurbished in about 1992 and received the corporate livery of red, white and blue - thus meaning you could no longer tell between the two batches (unless you were close enough to see the car numbers)! These trains were withdrawn in 2013.

[@prof.hectorholbrook4692]

Was working at Paddington Enterprise House at that time for Transmark (wholly-owned subsidiary of BR). GREAT MEMORIES!

[@OldOakTrains]

Thanks for watching 👍👍😊

[@altt-check1-2]

The good old rail days

[@OldOakTrains]

They certainly were…..👍😊

[@Battismore-Blue]

I do like British Rail Blue and Yellow

[@ashfaq1999]

Great 😊

[@OldOakTrains]

Thanks 😊

[@ashfaq1999]

@@OldOakTrains You’re Welcome 👍

[@backwheelbob46rr]

3 minute's 40 those paxman valenta's howling 😊 excellent video thanks

[@OldOakTrains]

Thanks; great to hear that filming the odd HST back in day wasn’t a mistake. I was always worried about ‘wasting’ battery capacity on them! 😱😊😊😊😊

[@johnhiggins8221]

Look how oily and filthy everything is, soo good!

[@gillscorner794]

Lots of network south east livery?

[@stuartread9512]

What's with the full rake of Mk2 1st class? Was it a special or was some declassified to 2nd?

[@Jerram89]

The Everard Junction era

[@prof.hectorholbrook4692]

PS: For all you Gricers, I was charged with arrangements with Freightliner & many others for the naming of 47314 in Paddington No.1. Thanks to Paddington Station Manager Conrad Clark for his Railway Operations pre-eminence that day!

[@theovanstaden5766]

Love Your 1980s videos, i grew up here in south africa reading railway magazines from the UK! love the BR blue livery on the Diesel locos! in the 1980s i also worked for the south african railways.Days when there were proper locos running trains not like todays modern buses on railway bogies lol

[@OldOakTrains]

Well, I’m pretty certain you’re the first visitor to the channel from SA, the first to comment anyway 😊😊. Glad you’re enjoying the videos. Pity to hear the trains over there aren’t any better than our modern versions as we’re planning to visit later this year. 🤞

[@theovanstaden5766]

@@OldOakTrainsin the Johannesburg area there some modern trains, the Cape area do run a heritage steam railway, check these two Guys on you tube to see south african trains, South African Railfan on yt and a chap by the name of Jaco Marais, they make good videos about the modern south african railways!

[@truetothegame2928]

paddington train station spotters 1988, les norton, pete laxey, tommo davis, cribba davis, len burgess, keith gordon, andy robbens, jase, grantly.

[@Ash-928]

The Class 50 always looks worried.

[@traceywoodward9762]

Paddington Station in the 1080s the best

[@jwpalfrey]

Really interesting to see the British rail solution to turning locos at a terminus was to deploy a stabled loco to haul the stock from the rear leaving. Unsure when that was deployed (probably nothing new) but great to see regardless.

[@tanyajackson3833]

ECS; Empty Coaching Stock duty. It used to be performed by panniers at Paddington. Could 08s manage it or was the OOC flyover an issue?

[@OldOakTrains]

Quite often there was a 31/4 doing the ECS duties, and sometimes Class 50s, but hardly ever an 08, if memory and my video testament serves. Not sure why exactly. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@andrewoverton5170]

None of the London termini used 350s for ECS moves to carriage servicing points as they were all a few miles out and the low speed would have tied up line capacity. Main line locos used to get them there and back at the same speed as other movements.

[@tanyajackson3833]

What is a 350?​@@andrewoverton5170

[@ChangesOneTim]

@@OldOakTrains 'Gronks' are max 15mph, too slow to do these moves without gobbling up valuable line capacity.

[@johnlladron735]

Thanks for a brilliant video. I'm amazed how far the railway has come, removing those lethal sloping platform ends to stop the hordes of people walking off onto the line, and it's so much better now locos arrive at platforms sub-10mph because this video shows dozens of people hurling themselves in front of the train. Were we just sensible then and able to judge risk?

[@OldOakTrains]

I think that was the case, H&S really took off in the 1990s, before then people were still expected to take some personal responsibility for risk. Thanks for commenting 👍😊

[@SirHackaL0t.]

Omg, the pollution. So bad. Eww

[@OldOakTrains]

Weird, but when I smell a Class 50 at a heritage railway, it takes me right back to Paddington 🥰😊😊😊

[@dj_paultuk7052]

I remember when Paddington station was literally black from all the soot and you were choking when walking to get on the trains. Now its clean and no soot to be seen anywhere.

[@CaitlinConnelly-bf7nb]

Hi there, I hope you're well! I'm an archive producer working on a documentary about the miners strikes of 1984, airing on Sky. The director has come across this video of yours. I was wondering if it'd be possible to get your permission to use a few seconds of your clip in our project? Many thanks and I look forward to hearing from you, Caitlin Connelly

[@OldOakTrains]

Hi Caitlin. I’ve no problem with you using my footage in whatever project you are working on. I’m afraid I have no idea how you would go about doing this, but I presume you do, and know how to keep within the copyright rules governing KZbin uploads. 😊. I won’t bother to reply to your similar request on the other Paddington upload, as the same applies. Regards, Geoff @OldOakTrains.

[@CaitlinConnelly-bf7nb]

​@@OldOakTrains Hi Geoff - thank you so much for allowing us to use some of your footage in our project! Can I just double check how you would like to be credited please? Thank you Caitlin

[@OldOakTrains]

Hi Caitlin, Any credit can be as simple as ‘Old Oak Trains’, thanks. Anything that helps signpost other railway enthusiasts to my KZbin channel would be much appreciated; after all, sharing my videos with them was the only driver for starting the channel in the first place - everything else has been a bonus. Regards, Geoff.

[@CaitlinConnelly-bf7nb]

@@OldOakTrains Amazing, thank you so much!

[@vinniechudam1835]

The sights, the sounds and the smells of a bygone diesel era ❤

[@OldOakTrains]

Amazing how video brings back the smells as well isn’t , in a way still photos don’t…🤔😊😊😊 Thanks for commenting.

[@dgattenb]

trains with buffet cars .. not a trolly in sight

[@user-hj6dt9nk4n]

Takes me back to my trips to Devon back in the 70s and 80s - proper trains with big engines not plasticky foreign designed under floor engined multiple units of today, loved the class 50s I think these and the deltics were the only diesel locos allowed up to the full 100mph (I may be mistaken) the class 47s were a bit dull with their slab sides and 95mph max

[@OldOakTrains]

Weren’t Peaks cleared for 100mph as well ( maybe just Class 46s) ? Definitely 50s and 55s though…. Thanks for commenting 👍👍😊😊

[@MrJezza31]

50047 did not last long after that!

[@OldOakTrains]

My only chance to video it before it went, it was only a couple of weeks after I got the camcorder that it was gone!. Thanks for watching and commenting. 👍😊

[@Mike-kc8rl]

British rail is doing its part for the environment here?

[@andrewoverton5170]

1960s and 1970s traction, what did you expect. Have you seen how much unburnt fuel a road vehicle of that era spewed out? Different times.

[@ChangesOneTim]

Around 20 years ago City of Westminster Environmental Heath was leaning very heavily on the railway to clean up Paddington's air. Fortunately the HST re-engining project had just started and all L/H workings except the PZ sleeper had gone by then.

[@mrvwbug4423]

@@andrewoverton5170Yeah people like to complain about emissions controls on modern cars, but many of them don't remember how awful the air quality was in cities back in the 70s and 80s, especially American cities like NY and LA. I was at Paddington 3 weeks ago on a visit from the US and the station was spotlessly clean, no diesel fumes, no soot stains, there is something to be said about that too. I couldn't imagine how smoky the paddington train hall would be with a handful of Valenta powered HSTs just idling away in there, especially if train supply was running from the tail end. And soot on absolutely everything, on top of literally everyone smoking cigarettes everywhere. Yes I remember how bad air quality was in the 80s.

[@Jack-tx2ve]

Make Britain great again.

[@gillscorner794]

It was actually always pretty shit tbh

[@Jack-tx2ve]

@@gillscorner794 pretty shit but not quite as shit as it is now. Make Britain slightly less shit again!

[@SH-ly1uy]

Cool. The UK looked like shit in the 80s already

[@oddities-whatnot]

Face masks would have been useful.

[@Barry_C00p3r]

🤦