"The final coaching stock rake to wear InterCity livery was set XC63, which received its Virgin red repaint in November 2000."
43078 in a classic late '90s mixed livery scene.
There are probably not that many rationales that can justify living in Birmingham as a stroke of good fortune. But as the epicentre of Virgin CrossCountry, New Street station gave trainspotters optimum access to Britain’s largest realm of HST and loco-hauled passenger service between 1997 and 2002.
43101 at Birmingham New Street.
A summer Saturday at New Street in the late 1990s would inevitably be headlined by a Deltic on the Ramsgate route at the very least. But behind the pomp of celebrity locomotives, it was also possible to observe a whacking 46 of the 57 power cars in the Virgin HST fleet – in a day, without moving a single mile from BNS.
THE ACTUAL POWER CARS
Two Virgin sets pass at high speed, in an archetypal late 1990s scene at Shernal Green in Worcestershire.
In the late 1990s heyday of the era, the huge Virgin HST fleet comprised the following power cars…
43006, 43007, 43008, 43013, 43014, 43029, 43062, 43063, 43065, 43067, 43068, 43069, 43070, 43071, 43078, 43079, 43080, 43084, 43086, 43087, 43088, 43089, 43090, 43091, 43092, 43093, 43094, 43097, 43098, 43099, 43100, 43101, 43102, 43103, 43121, 43122, 43123, 43153, 43154, 43155, 43156, 43157, 43158, 43159, 43160, 43161, 43162, 43166, 43178, 43180, 43184, 43193, 43194, 43195, 43196, 43197 and 43198.
These Class 43s were shared between Edinburgh Craigentinny and Plymouth Laira depots, and they worked interchangeably on 27 stock sets: 3 x 8-car for West Coast, and 24 x 7-car for CrossCountry. There were also 7 additional Mk.III coaches designated spare and ready to replace any coaches with problems.
43104, ex-works and in as a replacement for 43029, on 21st May 2001.
In spring 2001, 43029 notably moved to Great Western and was replaced in the Virgin fleet by the formerly stored power car 43104.
Once the Voyagers amassed a serious presence in service, Virgin could afford to let HST power cars go without replacing them, so the Class 43 fleet subsequently met with a staged reduction.
LIVERIES
InterCity 43193 leads a Virgin CrossCountry set through Gallows Green, summing up the look of the trains in the earliest days of VXC.
When Virgin acquired its HSTs from British Rail on 5th January 1997, aside from a single set which had been pre-painted in Virgin XC livery, the whole fleet wore the classic InterCity swallow colours which had defined the HST in the 1990s.
43068 in the first version of Virgin's HST livery.
The first version of the red and charcoal Virgin livery used on HSTs featured a yellow cab roof, larger-sized numbers, and an ‘XC CrossCountry’ logo beneath the Virgin branding on each bodyside. However, only the first handful of repaints received the yellow cab roof. From April 1997, new repaints began to feature a dark grey cab roof. Initially, the ‘XC’ logo was retained, but that was quickly dropped too, and the fully standardised Virgin HST livery was born…
43155 in the standardised, post-mid-1997 version of the Virgin livery.
The format of this livery was not subsequently changed between mid 1997 and the final repaint four years later.
Original VXC liveried power cars in their final year - 2000.
However, existing yellow cab roofs on Virgin power cars were not revised to grey in the 1990s, despite the apparent ease of the revision. The original yellow roof ‘XC’ livery remained extant on a handful of 43s until summer 2000. That August, the remainder had their ‘XC’ logos removed, and all then fairly rapidly received full repaints into the standard version of the livery.
A late 1990s mixed livery set headed by 43089, at Stoke Works.
In 1998 and 1999, mixed livery sets were extremely common.
43157 HMS Penzance, seen on the Lickey Incline, was one of the power cars adorned with a stick-on name in 1998.
In May 1998, Virgin began an experimental new naming policy for HST power cars, which displayed the names on substantial bodyside veneer stick-ons rather than on the traditional metal nameplates which had been applied at earlier namings. The new name displays were also used on Class 90 and DVT stock, but not older locos. And Virgin quickly dropped the practice, with the few vinyls applied to power cars in ’98 all being removed by 2000.
Another from the Lickey Incline. 43098 The Railway Children with a trad metal nameplate, in red.
The first half of 2001 saw the final two InterCity power cars disappear, leaving the Virgin HST fleet with a heavily standarised look. The best a photographer could hope for by summer ’01 was a power car with a red nameplate. Black nameplates were barely conspicuous.
43029 - still wearing InterCity livery in summer 2000, and still not ready to submit to a privatised colour scheme...
Despite its four plus years with VXC, 43029 never wore the Virgin red livery. It was the last original InterCity swallow power car to survive, and it retained IC colours right up to its 2001 transfer to FGW, and consequent application of ‘Barbie’ livery.
A mixed livery coaching stock rake seen at Blackwell in April 1999.
The final coaching stock rake to wear InterCity livery was set XC63, which received its Virgin red repaint in November 2000. However, due to the evolution of components in the stock sets, it was common to see mixes of Virgin and IC coaches in the same train during the late ’90s.
WORKINGS
43071 at Birmingham International in late November 2001.
Before the arrival of the Voyagers, Virgin’s CrossCountry HST sets took care of the most prestigious services, including named expresses like The Cornishman, The Devonian and The Wessex Scot. The services were almost entirely a mix of North East – South West and far North East/West – South Coast runs. The North West – South West stuff tended to be loco-hauled, although West Country trains coming down the WCML from Scotland could be CrossCountry HSTs. Trains from Manchester/Liverpool to the South East or South Coast were normally loco-hauled too.
In the late ‘90s, the West Coast HST sets worked out of Euston, with evening trains bound for Manchester, Holyhead or Blackpool.
WITHDRAWAL FROM THE TIMETABLE
Reduced down to 5 cars and ready for the Operation Princess phase, a fortunate surviving set is headed into Kings Norton by 43100, on 26th September 2002.
The event horizon for the CrossCountry HSTs came at the end of September 2002, when Virgin revolutionised its timetable into what was billed as Operation Princess. At that point, the Voyagers, which had been working in twos, were split to work singularly. This vastly increased the number of individual available trains, and nearly put the HSTs out of business on the XC network. To integrate into the Voyager-centric timetable, the handful of remaining CrossCountry HST sets were reduced to 5-car formations.
43101 in summer holiday use, near the end of the original Virgin HST era, 27th August 2003.
The next period of Virgin HST use, and subsequent operation of HSTs on CrossCountry, is picked up in the CrossCountry HSTs post. And there's a pictorial revisiting British Rail's CrossCountry ops in The History of InterCity Livery on CrossCountry Trains.
And there's a more cosmopolitan look at HSTs in the West Midlands and Worcestershire areas during the 2000s, including Great Western and sets from further afield, in HSTs in the West Midlands and Worcestershire: 1999 to 2009.