I thought I might start uploading photos from my collection. A lot of them are very bad but they remind me of things. In 1961 aged 8 I got a bike for my birthday and my sister gave me her old Brownie 127 camera. Unfortunately it wasn't entirely light proof which spoiled a lot of pictures. Anyway, I was able to cycle away from home (no restrictions in those days) make friends in other villages and take photographs of trains. This is, I think, my second ever photograph.
Harbury cutting is, I think I'm right in saying, the deepest railway cutting in the country. It's on the old Great Western London to Birmingham route a few miles south of Leamington Spa. The deepest part of the cutting is pretty inaccessible but, from Harbury village, a little lane runs downhill then crosses the cutting on a high 3 arch bridge, ending on the far side at a farm. It was here that I photographed the up afternoon Blue Pullman.
These trains were pretty new then and were almost the only diesels that we saw. They ran between Paddington and Birmingham Snow Hill, Paddington and South Wales and, the Midland Pullman, from St Pancras to Manchester Central. They were an attempt at retaining business custom in reply to the challenge of the M1 and domestic air travel.
The Birmingham and Manchester Pullmans were also intended to retain rail traffic between these cities using alternative routes whilst the main west coast main line was being disrupted by electrification work. With the switching on of the wires through to Euston in 1966 the Birmingham and Manchester services finished and the redundant units used for posh commuter runs to Oxford. They were scrapped in the mid 1970s when Inter City 125 units were introduced. Part of the route into Paddington that they used to take has been mothballed as trains on this route now terminate at Marylebone. Part of the route of the Manchester Pullman through the Peak District has long since been ripped up and Manchester Central is now the Gmex exhibition hall.
Although they were seen at the time as trains of the future they weren't really that brilliant. Like most of the first generation diesels they were underpowered. They had a 1000 horsepower engine at each end. The Inter City 125s have twice the power. The ride was also not great, especially on the sectional clickety clack track of the time.