THE UNDERSTATED 91s

SIR Nigel Gresley's illustrious 'A4' Pacifies played a significant part in establishing the East Coast Main Line as the premier Anglo-Scottish route before and after the Second World War, with the fastest journeys in steam days between London and Edinburgh taking around eight hours.

In the 1960s, with the impending demise of steam, a fleet of22 mighty 3,300hp 'Delrie' diesel-electric locomotives, built by English Electric, took over London to Edinburgh services, maintaining the premier nature of the route, synonymous with Gresley's world-famous locomotive Flying Scotsman. The 'Deltics', coupled with not inconsiderable work by BR Civil Engineers department, reduced the journey time down to around five and a half hours between the two capitals.

Backbone

In 1978 the iconic InterCity 125 (IC125) was introduced to the ECML. The HST (High-Speed Train), as it was known, shrunk the London to Edinburgh journey time further to just 4 hours and 37 minutes.

Since 1989, the 25kv AC electric Class 91 locomotive has been the backbone ofECML traction, reducing journey times to around four hours. The Class 91 is also Britain's' fastest railway locomotive with No. 91010 (now 91110) attaining a speed ofl61.7mph in September 1989, a record for a British locomotive that's never been beaten.

The story of the Class 91 owes much of its origin to British Rail's Advanced Passenger Train. The APT project used cutting-edge engineering and design to push the boundaries of high-speed train travel on Victorian railway infrastructure. The nature and extent of such a project determined that, at least initially, there would be technical problems requiring modification.

However, the technical issues that existed with APT were not the cause of the project's demise; the APT was ahead of its time but ultimately foundered because of broader political and economic factors affecting the UK in the early-1980s. A press and media pack, seemingly pervaded with a 'music hall joke' style of reporting for railways, did not help matters either.

In 1976, what was the world's fastest diesel-powered passenger rail services were launched on BR's Western Region with the introduction of the lnterCity 125 HSTs.

The '125s' had effectively 'let the genie out of the bottle' in terms of demonstrating to passengers in a tangible and consistent form how good Inter-City rail travel could be if the railway invested in both route infrastructure and, crucially, in new and modern trains. By 1982 the '125s' had replaced the once-mighty 'Deities' entirely on the East Coast Main Line.

Investment

Following evaluation of the success of both 110mph Inter-City services on the electrified West Coast Main Line and the 125mph performance of the IC125's, BR was able to demonstrate that electrifying the London King's Cross to Edinburgh route would meet the then 7% rate of return needed for the capital investment required by