Life on the Fast Track

And so with great fanfare, the railways in Britain, with much fanfare, enter the 1980s with the introduction of Southeastern's High Speed service from Ashford to London St Pancras.
I say enter the 1980's because this wonderful service increases the highest speed of a train on Britain's Railways by a whole 15 mph. Yes, from 125 to 140mph. It does seem to me that they have banged on about it rather.



So, yesterday, at 06:48 my friend Matt and I were on the last carriage of 395 005 to set off for London, thus reducing the times from over 50 minutes to 35. Just one stop before we pulled up at St Pancras, and soon the Kentish countryside was rushing bj.

The trains may, or may not be called Javelins, and were built by Hitachi in Japan. There are blue and sleek, and not unsexy. And for the time being, for a £4 extra you can upgrade and use the new high speed service.

High Speed not only refers to how fast the train travels, but to the line, the same one that Europe-bound Eurostars use. The line is fairly flat, gentle curves mean that trains can go faster and trans can whizz through or past many towns that normal trains would normally stop at.

So, if you live in Ashford, the time savings are clear, but then you may have to factor in a longer journey to your London office on the Tube, which means taking even longer for more money and having to be squeezed into an un-air-conditioned underground train. When the service is fully introduced in December, there will be a 36% extra cost to normal tickets, and for many that might be too high.

Still, for one day only we could bask in the media glow of tv cameras and radio reporters on both our departure and arrival.



We were both at Ashford over half an hour before departure time to ensure we got on the train in case of huge crowds. we needn't have worried. There were a few reporters and camera men milling around; we few passengers were each greeted by the station manager of Ashford station and told photography would be no problem at all. Us locals knew which direction the train would arrive from, and so we took up positions on the platform to get shots as it left it's sidings.



Twenty minutes before zero hour, it glided up. We took more pictures and then boarded the final carriage and took up seats in a near empty coach. A few nervous announcements later and right on time we pulled out and quickly accelerated to top speed, 122 mph! But soon the countryside was flashing past, as did the Medway towns. A brief halt at the new Ebbsfleet station and then into a tunnel, under the Thames at Dartford, out into the sunlight and the line then threads it's way between the lanes of the M25 before heading into a tunnel almost all the way to London and emerging into the sunshine with views over the desolate landscape that is being transformed into more business parks to the station and central London beyond.



At the station, all the company bigwigs were waiting, along with local and national TV. My father-in-law says he saw me on local TV; it's possible. Matt and I stayed on the platform, watching Eurostars coming and going, and then for the arrival of the next blue arrow from Kent.