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Blue Pullmans
The Blue Pullmans were luxury trains used from 1960 to 1973 by British Rail. They were the first Pullman diesel-electric multiple units, incorporating several novel features. Named after their original Nanking blue livery, the trains were conceived under the 1955 Modernisation Plan to create luxury diesel express trains aimed at competing with the motor car and the emerging domestic air travel market. Although not entirely successful – they were seen as underpowered, and ultimately not economically viable – they demonstrated the possibility of fixed-formation multiple-unit inter-city train services, that a decade later was developed as the InterCity 125, which resembled them in having an integral power car at each end of the train. There were two versions, built by Metro-Cammell in Birmingham: two first-class six-car sets for the London Midland Region (LMR), and three two-class eight-car sets for the Western Region (WR). They were initially operated by the luxury train op ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swansea Railway Station
, symbol_location = gb , symbol = rail , image = Swansea Railway Station - geograph.org.uk - 1150393.jpg , borough = Swansea, City and County of Swansea , country = Wales , coordinates = , grid_name = Grid reference , grid_position = , manager = Transport for Wales , platforms = 4 , code = SWA , classification = DfT category C1 , original = South Wales Railway , pregroup = Great Western Railway , postgroup = Great Western Railway , opened = as ''Swansea High Street'' , years = 6 May 1968 , events = Renamed ''Swansea'' , mpassengers = , footnotes = Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road Swansea railway station serves the city of Swansea, Wales. It is measured from London Paddington (via Stroud) on the National Rail network. In 2021/22 i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luxury Train
Luxury trains are a premium travel option designed to offer a comfortable ride and evoke an association with history and heritage. Some luxury trains promote tourism in destinations across a region, while others (such as the Maharajas' Express) take passengers on a long, leisurely ride through a single country. Luxury train travel has become popular, and its proponents cite several advantages over air travel. Although air travel can be monotonous, passengers on a luxury train can see the local environment, social and economic conditions, and a myriad of colors during their travels. Unlike airplanes, luxury trains are spacious and have restaurants and bars, comfortable sleeping and seating areas, and bathrooms. History Before sleeping and dining cars were introduced, long-distance train travel was an uncomfortable experience. George Pullman's first sleeping car, the Pioneer, was introduced in 1865 and was followed two years later by "hotel cars". [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
St Pancras Railway Station
St Pancras railway station (), also known as London St Pancras or St Pancras International and officially since 2007 as London St Pancras International, is a central London railway terminus on Euston Road in the London Borough of Camden. It is the terminus for Eurostar services from Belgium, France and the Netherlands to London. It provides East Midlands Railway services to , , , and on the Midland Main Line, Southeastern high-speed trains to Kent via and , and Thameslink cross-London services to Bedford, Cambridge, Peterborough, Brighton, Horsham and Gatwick Airport. It stands between the British Library, the Regent's Canal and London King's Cross railway station, with which it shares a London Underground station, . The station was constructed by the Midland Railway (MR), which had an extensive rail network across the Midlands and the North of England, but no dedicated line into London. After rail traffic problems following the 1862 International Exhibition, the MR decid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Midland Pullman
The ''Midland Pullman'' was the name given to a former express passenger train service operating on British Railways' old Midland Main Line between and via and Millers Dale. The train completed the journey in 3 hours 15 minutes. This service is not to be confused with the first Midland Railway Pullman coach introduced in 1874, named "Midland" which was of clerestory roofed design, imported from the Pullman Company in the US and assembled in Derby. Blue Pullman In July 1960 the ''Midland Pullman'' was relaunched as a luxury all-first-class service using two new Blue Pullman six-car diesel-electric units, aimed at covering the high end of the Manchester-London business market while services on the West Coast Main Line were disrupted during electrification. It called only at (now closed), and made the journey from London to Manchester in a record 3 hours 15 minutes. The best time between the two cities immediately previously had been 3 hours 50 minutes. The ''Midland Pullma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cardiff Central Railway Station
, symbol_location = gb , symbol = rail , image = Cardiff Central station (26526139271).jpg , caption = 1930s frontage of Cardiff Central station (northern entrance) , borough = Cardiff, City and County of Cardiff , country = Wales , coordinates = , grid_name = Grid reference , grid_position = , owned = Network Rail , manager = Transport for Wales Rail , platforms = 8 , code = CDF , classification = DfT category A , years = 19 June 1850 , events = Opened as ''Cardiff'' , years1 = 1896 , events1 = Enlarged , years2 = 1924 , events2 = Renamed ''Cardiff General'' , years3 = 1931–34 , events3 = Rebuilt , years4 = 1940 , events4 = Merged with Cardiff Riverside station , years5 = 1964 , events5 = Riverside platforms closed , years6 = 1973 , events6 = Renamed ''Cardiff Central'' , years7 = 2015-17 , events7 = Enlarged , mpassengers = , footnotes = Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road , mapframe=yes , mapframe-zoom = 13 Cardiff Cen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bristol Temple Meads Railway Station
Bristol Temple Meads is the oldest and largest railway station in Bristol, England. It is located away from London Paddington. It is an important transport hub for public transport in the city; there are bus services to many parts of the city and surrounding districts, with a ferry to the city centre. Bristol's other major station, Bristol Parkway, is a more recent station on the northern outskirts of the conurbation. Temple Meads was opened on 31 August 1840, as the western terminus of the Great Western Railway. The railway, including Temple Meads, was the first to be designed by the British engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Soon, the station was also used by the Bristol and Exeter Railway, the Bristol and Gloucester Railway, the Bristol Harbour Railway and the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway. To accommodate the increasing number of trains, the station was expanded in the 1870s by Francis Fox and again between 1930 and 1935 by Percy Emerson Culverhouse. Brunel's termi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolverhampton Low Level Railway Station
Wolverhampton Low Level was a railway station on Sun Street, in Springfield, Wolverhampton, England. It was built by the Great Western Railway (GWR), on their route from London Paddington to Birkenhead, via Birmingham Snow Hill. It was the most northerly broad-gauge station on the GWR network. Design The OWWR's engineer, John Fowler, designed the frontage, while the GWR's Isambard Kingdom Brunel designed the layout. The station building is two storeys high and constructed of Staffordshire blue brick in Italianate style, which is an unusual combination but the blue brick was abundant in the area in the 19th century. The design of the station was similar to that of the earlier High Level station. The main building has a large pediment; tall, round-headed, pedimented windows with ashlar brackets on the first floor which the main entrance on the ground floor. Plainer wings extend to either side of the main building which protrude to the front. The interior of the former booki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birmingham Snow Hill Railway Station
Birmingham Snow Hill is a railway station in Birmingham City Centre, England. It is one of the three main city-centre stations in Birmingham, along with and . Snow Hill was once the main station of the Great Western Railway in Birmingham and, at its height, it rivalled New Street station with competitive services to destinations including , , , Wales and South West England. The station has been rebuilt several times since the first station at Snow Hill, a temporary wooden structure, was opened in 1852; it was rebuilt as a permanent station in 1871 and then rebuilt again on a much grander scale during 1906–1912. The electrification of the main line from London to New Street in the 1960s saw New Street favoured over Snow Hill, most of whose services were withdrawn in the late 1960s. This led to the station's eventual closure in 1972 and its demolition five years later. After fifteen years of closure, a new Snow Hill station, the present incarnation, was built; it reopened in 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paddington Railway Station
Paddington, also known as London Paddington, is a Central London railway terminus and London Underground station complex, located on Praed Street in the Paddington area. The site has been the London terminus of services provided by the Great Western Railway and its successors since 1838. Much of the main line station dates from 1854 and was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Paddington is the London terminus of the Great Western Main Line; passenger services are primarily operated by Great Western Railway, which provides the majority of commuter and regional passenger services to west London and the Thames Valley region as well as long-distance intercity services to South West England and South Wales. The station is also the eastern terminus for Heathrow Express and the western terminus for Elizabeth line services from Shenfield. Elizabeth line services also run through Paddington westwards to Reading, Heathrow Terminal 5, and Heathrow Terminal 4, and eastwards to Abbey Wood ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TOPS
Total Operations Processing System (TOPS) is a computer system for managing railway locomotives and rolling stock, known for many years of use in the United Kingdom. TOPS was originally developed between the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP), Stanford University and IBM as a replacement for paper-based systems for managing rail logistics. A jointly-owned consultancy company, ''TOPS On-Line Inc.'', was established in 1960 with the goal of implementing TOPS, as well as selling it to third parties. Development was protracted, requiring around 660 man-years of effort to produce a releasable build. During mid-1968, the first phase of the system was introduced on the SP, and quickly proved its advantages over the traditional methods practiced prior to its availability. In addition to SP, TOPS was widely adopted throughout North America and beyond. While it was at one point in widespread use across many of the United States railroads, the system has been perhaps most prominently used ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Transport Commission
The British Transport Commission (BTC) was created by Clement Attlee's post-war Labour government as a part of its nationalisation programme, to oversee railways, canals and road freight transport in Great Britain (Northern Ireland had the separate Ulster Transport Authority). Its general duty under the Transport Act 1947 was to provide an efficient, adequate, economical and properly integrated system of public inland transport and port facilities within Great Britain for passengers and goods, excluding transport by air. The BTC came into operation on 1 January 1948. Its first chairman was Lord Hurcomb, with Miles Beevor as Chief Secretary. Its main holdings were the networks and assets of the Big Four national regional railway companies: the Great Western Railway, London and North Eastern Railway, London, Midland and Scottish Railway and the Southern Railway. It also took over 55 other railway undertakings, 19 canal undertakings and 246 road haulage firms, as well as the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
InterCity 125
The InterCity 125 (originally Inter-City 125New train speeds into service . BBC News, 1976-10-04; reproduced in the BBC "On This Day" website, accessed on 2019-05-15.) or High Speed Train (HST) is a diesel-powered high-speed passenger train built by between 1975 and 1982. Each set is made up of two Class 43 |
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