Birmingham New Street to Portsmouth Cab Ride

This Cab Ride was recorded from the cab of a Virgin Trains Voyager unit.

We depart from Birmingham New Street at 07.32 on 14th May 2003.

We approach the South Tunnels just out of the station and climb up to Proof House Junction and on to Grand Junction. At St Andrews Junction we join the line from Saltley and at Bordesley Junction, we join the line from Snow Hill. Our route takes us through Solihull, Leamington Spa and Fenny Compton – site of one of only three mechanical signalboxes at the time. Our next stop is at Banbury and then onto Oxford, Reading, Wokingham and Guildford where we take the Portsmouth direct line through Haslemere, Havant and approach Portsmouth via Fratton and coming to a halt at the end of a fascinating journey at Platform 3 at Portsmouth & Southsea.

During our journey we pass by a number of classes of locomotives including Class 66s, 57s, 47s, HSTs, Voyager’s and EMUs.

The programme was made in conjunction with Virgin Trains and met all the required safety conditions during filming.

DVD – Approximately 3 hours duration