John Meredith was a railway engineer who started work on the Southern Railway in 1945. After ten years, he went to Kings Cross and then, when the Eastern and North Eastern regions combined, he was relocated to York. He was responsible for the design of the diversion from Temple Hirst to Colton Junction. He describes the reasons for the diversion and the problems in its planning and construction. The only High Speed line before HS1 built to 140mph though restricted to 125 because of signalling limitations. John is now involved with the Derwent Valley Light Railway.
You can hear his interview here:
Part 1 – Problems (audio file on clyp.it)
Part 2 – Solutions
Part 3 – High Speed