Midland Mainline Rio HST memories - part 1

From May 2003 to September 2004 during the West Coast Route Modernisation, Midland Mainline operated an hourly HST service between London St Pancras and Manchester Piccadilly.

Codenamed 'Project Rio', the service ran along the Midland main line to Dore then took the Hope Valley line through Edale and Chinley through to Manchester Piccadilly, either via Hazel Grove or Romiley.

The extra HST sets had been transferred from Virgin Trains after their replacement with Voyagers, and several sets ran with Virgin liveried vehicles.

Here, former Virgin power car 43158 (still in Virgin livery) leads the 1247 Manchester Piccadilly to London St Pancras away from its origin on July 1st 2004. At the rear was 43070. All was not well with this set on this occasion, as can be seen from the sluggish departure.

43158 was withdrawn from service just 2 months later, but later sold to First Group and returned to traffic in 2006 with an MTU power unit. 43070 returned to service with Virgin Trains in 2005 for the summer season before becoming part of the short-lived Cotswold Rail fleet. It also now operates with First Great Western, with an MTU power unit.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• 43158
• 43070
• HST
• 125
• Midland
• Mainline
• Rio
• train

[petes125]

Yes, all the power cars in the Rio fleet had an R by the number.

[limeyfox]

Some of those Rio power cars were absolutely knackered, having just come out of Virgin XC squadron service. My father knows a former Virgin driver manager quite well, and he's said many of those sets wouldn't even manage 110mph on the level they were so run down.

[390052Knight]

its like East Midlands Trains!! The livery on the front Class 43 seems to vary from the coaches whose livery seems to occasionally vary from the rear class 43

[WSXFan]

Any idea what was wrong with the set? Can't say I've seen a HST depart so slow before, only thing I could think of would be dragging brakes or several notches taped out.

[Stirlingshire43110]

cheers

[Stirlingshire43110]

Does the R on 43070 stand for Rio?