Dozens of people have watched the final South West service of a type of high-speed train after almost 50 years in operation.

People gathered at Plymouth Railway Station on Saturday as Great Western Railway (GWR) retired its high-speed InterCity 125 trains.

GWR said The Castle Class locomotives and Mark 3 coaches had been in service since 1976.

People gathered for the final service in Plymouth, which was part of a round trip between the city and Penzance.

Craig Munday, mobile operations manager for Network Rail, said the trains had an “iconic design” and “it’s fair to say that they revolutionised intercity travel”.

Luke Farley, from GWR, said: “There aren’t many people that don’t remember catching one to London or a day out on the seaside.”

Mr Munday said they were brought into service to replace the locomotives that ran from the 1960s and 1970s.

“There is no other train really that has had the sort of emotional buy-in by both passengers, that have travelled on it, and the crews and the colleagues that have worked on them and maintained them and driven them over the years,” Mr Farley added.