GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Widney Manor Station: gwrwm1900

The 'Blue' Pullman on the 7:00am Wolverhampton Low Level to Paddington service on 9th May 1963. The Pullman is nearing Widney Manor having made its scheduled stop at Solihull. The Blue Pullman was a class of luxury train used from 1960 to 1973 by British Railways. The Blue Pullmans were the first Pullman diesel-electric multiple units, incorporating several novel features. Named after their Nanking blue livery, the trains were conceived under the 1955 Modernisation Plan to create luxury diesel express trains aimed at competing with the motor car and the emerging domestic air travel market. Although not entirely successful – they were seen as underpowered, unreliable, and ultimately not economically viable – the Blue Pullmans demonstrated the possibility of fixed-formation multiple-unit inter-city train services, and inspired the later development of the Inter City 125, which resembles them in having an integral power car at each end of the train.

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