Great Western Coffee Shop

As I parked at Swindon this morning, the nice lady on Radio 4 informed me that today (4 Oct) is the anniversary of the first HST service to the West in 1976. I’ve no idea if this is correct but I was very pleased that the 0612 to PAD is an HST. I wished it ‘happy birthday’ as it pulled in and would have bought it a small cake if I’d known earlier... 😁

BBC Points West report of the first HST in regular service: https://youtu.be/ySyFzWgLt_4

42 years of largely magnificent service hammering up and down the GWML.  Time now for a slightly overdue wind down on more rural routes where the speedo won’t go above 100mph before retirement.  I should imagine, and hope, we'll be celebrating a 50th anniversary in 8 years time.

Nice to see that the video I converted from a no longer used RealPlayer format and uploaded to YouTube is still getting views.

Now if only the BBC News archives would dust off the original and post it online in a clearer resolution.

Maybe someone needs to send them a reminder ...

There is a report somewhere on YouTube of one of the WR test runs in passenger service but I couldn't readily find it today. Maybe because had had been posted up more as an example of a news bulletin and less for its contents.

I have a contact who can tell me if it still exists and is either on the archive server or in a tape library but I seriously doubt I can get a release copy  :(

Found what I was looking for earlier, from the BBC Nine O'clock News of 29/4/75: https://youtu.be/DwVdqXJn1xM?t=1501

(Also has a report following on the reopening of Magdalen Road)

The source I used to lift the video and publish to YouTube was an archived BBC webpage:

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/articles/2005/11/22/pwaod_125_feature.shtml

The video link appears to be dead now, but it shows that the news item has been converted for web viewing in the past. Whether the BBC will bother to do so again, using an up to date format, is the question.

Probably not until the 50th anniversary...

I've asked the question, so we'll see what, if anything, comes back.

It seems the HST is one day younger than my mate Will! But I wonder what happens to the HST on two double whiskies?  :o

The computer would say wrong kind of fuel !!!!

I think that's what Will said next morning!

Update - good news and bad: the clip is archived on a BBC News server. I've seen it but I don't have any permission to distribute the content I'm afraid.

Thanks for investigating. Perhaps it'll show up online again one day...

There';s an HST in the background of one of the two new Paddington 50p pieces as a nod to this