InterCity 125 - Background

Background

In the later 1950s and early 1960s, the British Transport Commission was modernising its rail network. In particular, it wanted to increase intercity speeds, so that the railways could compete more effectively with the new motorways. The government was unwilling to fund new railways, so the BTC focused its attention on increasing line speeds through the development of new trains and minor modifications to the existing infrastructure. A team of engineers was assembled at the Railway Technical Centre in Derby in the early 1960s, with the aim of developing an "Advanced Passenger Train" (APT), that would be capable of at least 125 miles per hour (201 km/h) and incorporate many features not previously seen on British railways—such as tilting to allow higher speeds on bends.

The APT project had suffered repeated delays, and in 1970, the British Railways Board (BRB) decided that it was not sufficiently developed to be able to provide modernisation of the railways in the short term. Thus, the BRB authorised the development of a high-speed diesel train, an operational prototype of which was to be built by 1972, for short-term use until the APT was able to take over.