Interior of a refurbished first class coach.

British Rail's fourth and final design of passenger carriages was designated Mark 4, and were designed for use as part of InterCity 225 sets to provide services on the newly-electrified East Coast Main Line between London, Leeds, and Edinburgh. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x768, 212 KB) The interior of a Mk IV first class carriage. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x768, 212 KB) The interior of a Mk IV first class carriage. ... Logo of British Rail British Railways (BR), later rebranded as British Rail, ran the British railway system from the nationalisation of the Big Four British railway companies in 1948 until its privatisation in stages between 1994 and 1997. ... Restored passenger cars on display at the Mid Continent Railway Museum in North Freedom, WI. A passenger car is a piece of railroad rolling stock that is designed to carry passengers. ... Class 91/1, no. ... The East Coast Main Line viaduct at Durham. ... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. ... Statistics Population: 443,247 Ordnance Survey OS grid reference: SE297338 Administration Metropolitan borough: City of Leeds Metropolitan county: West Yorkshire Region: Yorkshire and the Humber Constituent country: England Sovereign state: United Kingdom Other Ceremonial county: West Yorkshire Historic county: Yorkshire (West Riding) Services Police force: West Yorkshire Police Ambulance service... Edinburgh (pronounced ; Dùn Èideann () in Scottish Gaelic) is the capital of Scotland and its second-largest city. ...

History and Construction

In what was a relatively small build (compared to the earlier Mark 2 and Mark 3 designs), the coaches were built between 1989 and 1991 by Metro Cammell of Birmingham (later Alstom) at their Washwood Heath works. The whole fleet of 302 vehicles is currently operated by GNER in 30 fixed formations of nine or ten coaches with a Driving Van Trailer and Class 91 locomotive. 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Metropolitan Cammell Carriage and Wagon (MCCW) was a Birmingham, England based manufacturer of railway carriages and wagons. ... The city from above Centenary Square. ... Alstom (formerly GEC-Alsthom) (Euronext: ALO) is a large French company whose businesses are power generation and manufacturing trains (e. ... Washwood Heath is an area of Birmingham, England. ... GNER White Rose train at Kings Cross railway station Great North Eastern Railways (GNER) is a British train operating company (TOC) owned by Sea Containers Ltd. ... A Driving Van Trailer or DVT is a purpose-built railway vehicle that allows the driver to operate a locomotive from the other end of a train. ...

The Mark 4 incorporated a number of improvements over the Mark 3 stock that preceded it, notably the inclusion of automatic pushbutton operated plug-type doors in place of the earlier manually operated slam-doors. Disabled access was another priority of the design, so the door vestibules were enlarged to allow a more generous turning circle for a wheelchair. With the ever-increasing spectre of overcrowding, the so-called ‘gangway passenger’ had become an important consideration, therefore the vestibule environment was improved with carpeted walls, better lighting, more attention paid to draught-proofing from the carriage doors and flip-down seats.

Many of these innovations came courtesy of the abandoned Advanced Passenger Train, upon which the Mark 4 was heavily based. This influence was most obvious with the Mark 4's profiled sides, which were intended to allow the retrofitting of the APT's much-criticised tilting mechanism, but this never came to fruition. British Rail's initial business case for the Mark 4 anticipated them also being operated on the West Coast Main Line as a follow on order after the East Coast Main Line electrification. After the failure of the InterCity 250 project to gain Treasury support, British Rail ordered a small number of Class 91 locomotives. However, the manufacture of the Networker Rolling Stock at the time precluded these being built. The Advanced Passenger Train (APT) was an unsuccesful prototype tilting train developed by British Rail during the 1970s and early 1980s. ... A class 91 at Peterborough in the late 1980s wearing original InterCity Swallow livery. ...

The Mark 4 was the first BR vehicle not to use the iconic Rail Alphabet typeface for any of its interior signage and operating notices. A sample sign set in Rail Alphabet Rail Alphabet is a font designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert for the 1968 rebranding of British Rail. ...

The Mark 4, like the Mark 3 before it, has gained widepread praise in the railway industry for its exceptional crashworthiness, something that was proven in the Hatfield and Great Heck crashes, where experts identify the integral construction of the vehicles as a key factor in the size of the death toll. The Hatfield rail crash was a railway accident that occurred on 17 October 2000, at Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK. A Great North Eastern Railway Intercity train bound for Leeds had left London Kings Cross at 1210 local time. ... The Selby rail crash was a high-speed train accident that occurred at Great Heck near Selby, North Yorkshire, England on the morning of February 28, 2001. ...

The Class 158 and Class 159 diesel multiple units are the only multiple units to be based from the Mark 4 bodyshell. Class 158, no. ... The British Rail Class 159 Express Sprinter (also known as South Western Turbo by Network South East) is a diesel multiple unit, built from 1992-93 by BREL at Derby Works. ... Diesel multiple units (DMUs) are regional rail cars which contain both passenger accommodations and propulsion. ...

Unlike prior generations of British Rail carriages, the Mark 4 design was not adopted by Iarnrod Eireann (Irish Rail); the CIÉ Mark 4 push-pull carriages introduced in mid-2006 are of a different design, manufactured by the Spanish manufacturer CAF. Iarnród Éireann (IÉ; in English Irish Rail), is the largest passenger railway system in Ireland. ... A wide variety of hauled coaches have been used on the railways of Ireland. ... CAF logo Construcciónes y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) is a rail equipment manufacturer based in Beasain in the Basque Country, Spain. ...

VIA Rail use carriages derived from British Rail’s Mark 4 on some of their inter-city and sleeper services in Canada. These carriages were originally built for the abortive Nightstar services to Europe, and adapted by Bombardier Transportation to meet Canadian service requirements. VIA Rail Canada (also referred to as VIA Rail and VIA; pronounced vee-ah) is an independent Crown corporation offering intercity passenger rail services in Canada. ... The Nightstar was a proposed overnight sleeper service from various parts of the United Kingdom to continental Europe, via the Channel Tunnel. ... Bombardier Transportation is the rail equipment division of the Bombardier group. ...

Project Mallard

Between late 2003 and April 2006, GNER and Bombardier Transportation undetook a rebuilding and refurbishment programme for the Mark 4 stock, called Project Mallard. Trains with these rebuilt coaches became known as Mallards, to distinguish them from unrefurbished 225 sets during the upgrade programme, named after the Mallard steam locomotive, which was built in the 1930s by GNER’s predecessor, the London and North Eastern Railway, and holds the world record for steam locomotives. 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... April 2006 : ← - January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December- → Events 1 April 2006 (Saturday) Marcos Pontes, Brazils first astronaut, reaches the International Space Station. ... Bombardier Transportation is the rail equipment division of the Bombardier group. ... Mallard at York Number 4468 Mallard is a London and North Eastern Railway Class A4 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotive built in the 1930s by the LNER and designed by Sir Nigel Gresley in England. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... LNER timetable for Autumn 1926 detailing the resumption of services after the General Strike. ... Scheme of steam locomotive. ...

The Mallard refit gave the Mark 4s all-new interiors with new seats and carpeting, and power points at every seat for charging laptops and powering appliances. The vestibule areas lost their flip-down seats near the entrances, and perch-type seats were put in their place. As part of the Mallard programme, the buffet coach in each set was turned around and half-converted to provide more standard-class seating. Wheelchair-width doors were fitted and the overall seating capacity of a full-length train was increased.

The buffet itself was remodelled as ‘cafe-bar’ in a similar style to the ‘shop’ concept developed by Virgin on their Voyager and Pendolino trains. However, the range of products offered by GNER is smaller than on Virgin trains: they do not supply CDs or magazines, for example. Virgin Trains is a train operating company in the United Kingdom. ... A Class 220 Voyager at Bristol. ... Class 390 no. ...

As of July 2006, 30 of their 31 Mallard trains offer 802.11b/g wireless LAN access to the Internet. GNER’s wifi rollout is currently running several months ahead of schedule, and should be completed on all Mallard electric trains well before the end of 2006. Access is complimentary in first class, and chargeable at rates similar to internet cafes ^{[citation needed]} in second class — about £6 for an hour, and in June 2006 a new tariff was introduced giving 24 hours’ access for £9.95 (previously three hours for the same price). GNER’s wireless Internet connectivity was run as a trial from December 2003, and introduced into service from April 2004, making it the first service of its kind in the United Kingdom (similar services are now offered by Virgin Trains and Southern). It has been suggested that wireless network interface cards be merged into this article or section. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Virgin Trains is a train operating company in the United Kingdom. ... Southern is the latest name of the train operating company that took over from Connex South Central on the routes to South London, Surrey, and Sussex from Victoria and London Bridge. ...

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British Rail Mk4 coaches

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