Fifty years of Electric Scots to be marked at Glasgow Central

PLANS are underway to mark 50 years since the introduction of the Electric Scots, the brand name given by BR to the new electric trains running between London and Glasgow and introduced on Monday May 6, 1974.

The trains, comprising Class

86 and 87 locomotives hauling air-conditioned Mk.2 coaches, revolutionised travel between the two cities, with promotional material boasting of the Royal Scot, still named, and the crack train on the West Coast Main Line completing the journey in five hours.

Slower journeys had been the norm as the overhead wires were extended north from Weaver Junction, terminal point of the original Euston to Crewe electrification, for several years as new signalling was installed, overhead line masts and feeder stations installed, bridges raised, and new track laid.

Regular Glasgow-London trains, headed by two Class 50s and working in multiple, were diverted on to the former Glasgow & South Western Railway to allow work to be done on the former Caledonian main line via Beattock, with diversions south of Carlisle, often being via the Settle and Carlisle line. BR planners fully expected that the S&C would close once electrification of the main line was complete, with the Nith Valley line being singled south of Kilmarnock, both proposals appearing in a report of 1968 which set out and costed the scheme to the Government.

Plans being considered

A spokesman for Avanti West Coast said the anniversary is on the company’s radar and that the possibility of working with Locomotive Services Limited to bring one of its Class 87s up to Glasgow Central on May 6 was being looked at. There are difficulties, however, because of the continuing ASLEF dispute which, said the company, makes timetable planning difficult, and there are several planned West Coast Main Line blockages scheduled to be in place on May 4-6. Other thoughts revolve combining the golden jubilee of the Electric Scots with a celebration of the completion of the refurbishment of Avanti’s present-day successors, the Class 390 Pendolinos.

The departure of the first electricallyhauled Royal Scot was marked by BR Scottish and London Midland Region top brass, while Glasgow Provost, Sir William Gray, waved the train away as the Glasgow Police Pipe Band played it out of Glasgow Central, hauled by No. 87015, one of the new locos built for the electric services. For four weeks before, a full-scale replica of Class 87 No. 87001 floated on a barge in the Clyde, upriver from Central Station Bridge, emblazoned with the words ‘Glasgow-London Five Hours from May.’ Local media hailed it as a bold PR stunt, and the locomotives captured the imagination of Glaswegians, alerting them to the new 100mph electric services southwards.

Glasgow man Dennis Daly travelled regularly to Euston on his way to and from Cambridge University, where he was a post-graduate student in the years immediately before and after electrification. He said: “The electric trains transformed travel on the Glasgow-London line.

The five-hour journey, in really comfortable, air-conditioned coaches was truly revolutionary. During the electrification work, for one or two years previously, I became used to travelling diesel-hauled down the Nith Valley line and sometimes, south of Carlisle, over the Settle and Carlisle. The entire Glasgow-London journey could take as much as seven or eight hours. I still have the line guide that was given out then to publicise the service. It makes fascinating reading today, especially as the industry described for places such as Glasgow, Motherwell and Crewe, is largely gone. There’s no doubt that the nationalised BR took did everything it could to market the new trains, and the service improvements were wonderful.”

Winning scheme

The extension of the overhead wires from Weaver Junction to Motherwell cost £38 million for new signalling and £36 million for electrification, and BR had to fight for government money against stiff competition for road-building projects. A large part of the reason for the new, fast services, was to give the railways a more level playing field in competition with air services between Glasgow and London, and the move won traffic back to the railway. Much was made at the time of the electric locomotives ‘flattening’ the gradients leading up to Shap and Beattock Summits, which were real challenges to steam and its diesel replacements, even two class 50s working in multiple, while line improvements allowed the electrics to achieve a five-hour inter-city timing 50 years ago, just 25 minutes more than the best timings on the West Coast Main Line today.

HUGH DOUGHERTY The way we were: Two Class 50s in multiple, barely finding room at Glasgow Central’s Platform 1, head up their Mk.1 coaches on a London service in April 1974, immediately before electrification.

MITCHELL LIBRARY, GLASGOW COURTESY DENNIS DALY Above: The mock-up Class 87 No. 87001 floats on its barge on the Clyde to publicise the new services. Right: The souvenir line guide from 1974, introduced to publicise the Electric Scots.

HUGH DOUGHERTY On Monday, May 6, 1974, Class 87 No. 87015, complete with Electric Scots headboard, attracts plenty of attention at the head of the first Down Royal Scot at Glasgow Central’s Platform 2, as it waits to leave for Euston, due five hours later.

ALAN WEAVER LMS ‘Black Five’ No. 44871 heads past St James bridge, south of Doncaster station, with the Railway Touring Company’s ‘The White Rose’ from King’s Cross to York and return on February 24. The sun faded as a downpour began and a rainbow appeared.