British Rail’s High Speed Train caused a sensation when it burst onto the scene in October 1976. Just eight years after the end of steam, Britain’s travellers loved the new train, which as the branding InterCity 125 hinted raced between cities at up to 125 miles an hour. And you didn’t have to pay a penny extra for the privilege.

Speed was the big attraction: in the early years, the fastest service from Cardiff to London took just 1 hour 41 minutes, a speed unmatched by today’s timetable. But the bold design, with its striking blue and yellow wedge-shaped power cars, played a big part in making the High Speed Train an icon, thanks to designer Sir Kenneth Grange, who died this week aged 95. According to his obituary in The Times (paywall), British Rail asked him to enliven the train’s livery, but he persuaded BR he could also make power cars more streamlined, with shades of the 1930s steam loco record breaker Mallard.