The New Years Honours often causes controversy with many seeing them as rewards for failure when given out to bankers and politicians and senior civil servants etc and its these awards which tend to hit the headlines so its easy to miss the well deserved awards like this one which I think many people will see as well deserved:
Designer Kenneth Grange - creator of the InterCity 125 train and Britain's first parking meter - has been knighted in the New Year Honours list.
Source : BBC News
Sir Kenneth, who said the 125 would be "on the rails when I've long gone off them", said he was "very pleased" because he was "a monarchist at heart". Work for Parker pens, the 1997 redesign of the London black cab and the Adshel bus shelter are among his other designs but he says the InterCity 125 high speed train has had "the most impact on the general life of the public".
So lets kick off the new year with a few photos of this excellent train, which will probably still be serving Plymouth for many years yet!
43185 20 May 2001
Creative Commons licensed flickr photo shared by
Steve Jones 
First Great Western's 43192 at Plymouth on 8th April 2002.
Creative Commons licensed flickr photo shared by
Roger Marks 
43309 24 May 2008
Creative Commons licensed flickr photo shared by
Matt Thorpe 
43307 24 May 2008
Creative Commons licensed flickr photo shared by
Matt Thorpe 
My photo: 43366 15 July 2009
My photo: Unidentified 8 March 2010
43009 11 March 2011
Creative Commons licensed flickr photo shared by
Nick Rice
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