Onboard The 125 Group HST - The Citadel Circle - 25/07/2026

On July 25th 2026, The 125 Group took their HST set to Carlisle, with The Citadel Circle tour from Manchester Victoria. I decided to do the tour in first class.
I boarded the train at York, the last stop on the outbound leg before continuing non-stop to Carlisle. We headed north up the East Coast Mainline. Shortly after passing Durham, we joined the Tyne Valley Line via Low Fell Royal Mail Terminal.
The tour was operated with 43159 ‘Rio Warrior’ in its Midland Mainline livery, and 43025 ‘Exeter’ which looks amazing in its InterCity swallow livery and looks great with the matching coaching stock. I was hoping to do more filming of what the inside of the train looked like, but it was quite busy and therefore didn’t film much.
After arriving in Carlisle, we had just under three hours to wonder around while the HST was being prepped for the return journey to Manchester via the West Coast Mainline.
We headed south via Shap on the return with some great views, and we called at Preston, Crewe and Stoke before arriving into Derby where we had a 10 minute wait before heading towards Chesterfield and Sheffield, so some of us took the opportunity to quickly hop off and take a few pictures. I left the train at Sheffield where I was able to pick up a train back to York.
It was great having a full day out on a HST, and I’ll hopefully be able to do another ride on it in the future.

Timestamps:

- 0:00 - Train arriving at York
- 1:36 - Leaving York
- 11:01 - Thirsk
- 12:14 - Northallerton
- 13:28 - Darlington
- 15:14 - Durham
- 16:23 - Joining the Tyne Valley line
- 28:09 - Arriving at Carlisle
- 29:16 - Positioning moves
- 37:03 - Leaving Carlisle on return
- 48:10 - Preston
- 51:38 - Crewe
- 57:12 - Stoke-On-Trent
- 1:05:05 - Derby
- 1:12:08 - Sheffield
- 1:13:03 - Train leaving Sheffield
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