Sprinters Seen At St Pancras

[RichmondCommu]

Hello everyone,

On the evening of the 5th October 1985 I saw 150001 and 151001 at St Pancras station. Can anyone explain what they were doing there? Were they deputising for a HST or maybe a class 45 on a relief working?

Kind regards,

Essex Ram

 

[Darandio]

Kind regards,

Richmond Commuter.

This is strange. You have signed your other threads with the username of Essex Ram, yet this one is signed as a recently deceased and very well respected member of this forum?

Given he used to sign off many of his posts exactly as above, seeing it has made me feel slightly uneasy and I had to say something. I do miss his input here.

 

[deltic]

There is a picture on Wikipedia https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_150#/media/File:150001_pancras.jpg showing 150001 at St Pancras - with the caption "During a demonstration run in the summer of 1985 unit 150001 stands in Platform 7 at London's St Pancras station"

 

[RichmondCommu]

I'm very sorry for the confusion. I'm visiting RichmondCommu's (Andrew) wife Manjit and their youngest daughter to go through Andrew's extensive collection of photographs. Manjit occasionally logs on in her husbands user name and there are currently two lap tops on the kitchen table. Manjit wanted to post a thread and got mixed up between the lap tops. Essex Ram

 

[Darandio]

I'm very sorry for the confusion. I'm visiting RichmondCommu's (Andrew) wife Manjit and their youngest daughter to go through Andrew's extensive collection of photographs. Manjit occasionally logs on in her husbands user name and there are currently two lap tops on the kitchen table. Manjit wanted to post a thread and got mixed up between the lap tops. Essex Ram

Thanks for the explanation, I simply got spooked. Hope all of his family and friends are okay.

 

[RichmondCommu]

This is strange. You have signed your other threads with the username of Essex Ram, yet this one is signed as a recently deceased and very well respected member of this forum?

Given he used to sign off many of his posts exactly as above, seeing it has made me feel slightly uneasy and I had to say something. I do miss his input here.

I'm very sorry for the confusion. I'm visiting RichmondCommu's (Andrew) wife Manjit and their youngest daughter to go through Andrew's extensive collection of photographs. Manjit occasionally logs on in her husbands user name and there are currently two lap tops on the kitchen table. Manjit wanted to post a thread and got mixed up between the lap tops. Essex Ram

 

[krus_aragon]

Sprinters were still a new thing in 1985. Wikipedia has an image of 150001 at St Pancras, which is described on the Class 150 article as being taken in the summer of 1985. The photo's uploader describes it as having made a publicity run from Derby.

 

[edwin_m]

I seem to recall one of the 150s was a last minute substitute for a failed HST on one occasion. Kept remarkably close to time too...

 

[gordonthemoron]

I think that was a very early morning sprinter service from Derby to Bedford in the late 80s which connected with a Thameslink service at about 3:30am

 

[ag51ruk]

There was a launch event for the Sprinters at St Pancras, which I think featured a "race" against an actual sprinter (athlete) along the platform. I guess they made it down there for other demo runs as well.

 

[The_Engineer]

At that date (late 1985) there were regular overnight diagrams for the new Sprinter prototypes between Derby and St Pancras. They were essential for shakedown/mileage accumulation/reliability proving, in addition to service running Derby to Matlock in the daytime.

The aim of the overnight runs was to hammer them hard on long fast runs in addition to the local stop-starts in the day, and reveal any glitches before the follow-on orders were placed. In the end I think the 50 Class 150/1s were ordered before the "proving programme" was finished.

I lived next to the MML at Sileby at this time (1984-87) and used to hear Sprinters heading south about 22:30 most every night!!

Yes, there were also some daytime press launches, etc.