Monday, March 16, 2009

Blue Pullman on test


A rare shot of one of the shiny new Blue Pullman sets at Aldridge in 1959. The Pullmans were built at the Metropolitan Cammel works in Washwood Heath, Birmingham, and were "road tested" across the Sutton Park line, running to Lichfield Road Junction and back.

Almost forerunners of the 1970s HST designs, 2 Pullman units went into service on the LMR (6-car sets, as shown here) and 3 units on the WR (8-car sets) in 1960.

Photo by PP Newell.

2 comments:

Regan said...

A fascinating view. Those trains were superb units, a great shame that none were preserved.

Its hard to believe that speeds of up to 100mph were seen over the Park line during these test runs, Class 45 locos were also wound up over the route on test trains...

GWR55 said...

Some "Peak" photo's to come soon !

I'm indebted to Pete for these superb old shots...

ps there are more photo's of the Pullman at Aldridge and Lichfield Rd Jnc in Kevin Robertson's "Blue Pullman" book.