As a PS to our day on the Mid Hants Railway, here are the photos that Phil sent me.  More evidence that I was there!

And an interesting article on the iconic HST 125 units.  I rather liked the comments:

The InterCity 125 was made of very robust moulded plastic, not sheet metal. This was groundbreaking. Also, with conventional trains, coaches were pulled or pushed by a locomotive – but our train would have a power car at each end, a clever piece of engineering. One day, I asked the chief engineer: “What do the buffers do?” He pointed out that because our engine car would never be pushing anything, it didn’t need them. So we took them off, and that became part of the iconic look. The distinctive yellow nose was to warn people working on the track that this bloody great thing was coming.

And

It was often said that the British Rail sandwich was curly. It wasn’t. It was soggy and sweaty – because it came wrapped in 1960s clingfilm. We put them in boxes. Suddenly you could be travelling at 125mph on this fantastically designed train – and have a decent meal. It was wonderful.