With the exodus of the Western class of diesel-hydraulic railway locomotives from Cornwall in early 1977, I felt that the disappearance of Swindon’s influence signaled the end of my real interest in railway traction. Although the Class 50s which replaced them were impressive machines, their only individuality was a digit or two on their cab side and, occasionally, a headcode personalisation. Their huge steel bulk and pounding exhaust when motoring made them substantial and worthy successors, and because they were small in number, they avoided the ubiquity of the Brush Class 47s. But every day bland rationalisation and standardisation were settling in, and the GWR legacy fading fast. Signalling, motive power and rolling stock all seemed similar, and somehow an intrusion into West Country territory.
9th May 1976 sees 50001 rather sidelined on Laira depot, and not in constant use as one of the premier loco classes of the time. The ’50s’ were giving the WR availability problems as technicians and the engine crews struggled to understand their needs. 810605A01-LRA-50001-PAS_D
During the few months following the last Western withdrawals, Class 37s had penetrated to St Blazey in eastern Cornwall for china clay workings; ACS rakes were becoming more commonplace; and Long Rock’s HST depot was coming together. Penzance Station Yard became the new stabling point and different locos were used to heat carriages. 24054 was apparently sent to West Cornwall for the same purpose, but it never appeared to be carrying out the function.
After taking a photo, a train spotter fills his eyes with 37299 and 37142 heading an ‘up’ freight through Plymouth Station on damp 13th June 1981. Hands in his pockets, a rail worker whiles away the time before the signal ahead clears. 810613A01-PLY-37XXX-PAS_U
Normal locos at work in Penzance were class 50s, 47s, 46s and, of course, the allocated 08s, but with the rundown of goods traffic, now the Goods Yard had closed, there was little “out of the ordinary” in train movements to my visits. Even seeing 08840 and 08937 carrying out some sort of illegal movement as they travelled light engine towards Penzance Station at the same speed and with only about 20 yards between them was novel, but barely worth mentioning.
Between platforms wet from a shower, 08840 – with shunter’s pole across its buffers – rests against carriages it will shortly remove from an inbound train at Platform 2. A shunter awaits the all clear from further down the platform before coupling up and moving off. 75###AO01-PNZ-d4181-SHU_S
I catalogued the developments of the rise of the new and fall of the old depots, and saw the final departure of the class 24 – now roughly renumbered TDB968008 in half inch high hand-painted letters, on 2nd May. It had had a bank of sockets added to its front end, bearing legends like ‘ETH OFF’, ‘SUPPLY OFF’, ‘ETH ON HIGH’ and ‘ETH MODE’ on it, which I’d never seen on a loco before, and didn’t have prior to its arrival and subsequent renumbering.
The train heating boiler of TDB986008 (ex-24054) is used for warming stock in its new role as a Carriage Heating Unit at Newton Abbot station in 1978. Buffered up to it is 08646, and it displays NTBM warning light and information boards. 7802#AA01-NTA-TDB24-HEATG
On a railway journey from Cornwall in April to arrange work experience, I suffered a Class 50 failure at Hungerford of 90 minutes when its boiler went, and an engine restart wasn’t possible. We were pushed from the rear and braked from the front, I was told at the end of the journey, and although 50032 was intended to be taken off at Newbury, … and then Reading, … it eventually worked through to Paddington. There had been five similar incidents last week, the driver added, and I began to discover that perhaps the lack of enthusiasm for these locos I was aware of was in fact well-founded. In London I saw locos with metal headcode covers and perspex disks forming “marker lights” for the first time; electrification masts going up at King’s Cross; and 253s with different colour infills to the ‘Inter City 125’ logos on their bodysides – all new sights, which whetted my appetite for relocating to the city hopefully sometime the same year.
With metal infill and fixed lights in its headcode, 47552 rises from the Copenhagen tunnels at Kings Cross with an “up” train consisting of Mk2 ACS. Overhead electrification equipment crowd the space above, and electric points motors the track space beside it. 771210A01-KGX-47552-PAS_U
Brake tenders were a new sight for me, and I saw several of these at different locations west of London, but none in use. I experienced my first and only detonator explosion under the train as my Northampton unit ran past PW work at Watford on a trip north, and DMUs in white with blue stripe livery working out of Paddington somehow freshened up the appearance of those humble railway stalwarts.
A Class 312 unit at Watford Junction, a station I passed through on many occasions when visiting my sister at her home in Northampton. This was always a respite from monotony as the junction behind invariably had a variety of rolling stock in the yard. 79###AE01-WFJ-EMUX3-PAS_I
Come the Summer months, my new temporary home was in Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, where I undertook three months work experience in my chosen profession, but on the railway front, the only motive power I saw were Bedpan line DMUs, 25s on parcels, and shunters, apart from different sightings on the rare respite of trips to London or Quainton Road Railway Centre.
When I lived at Aylesbury for three months, Class 115 DMUs like this one were virtually the only motive power I saw – except for the odd ’08 and Class 25. To the right is the Schwarzkopf factory and to the left, passengers make their way out as the DMU moves away. 861115A01-AYL-DMUX3-PAS_D
By the Autumn I was living in London with a permanent job, but in South London – where the only real interest were the studdings of 33s and 73s on PW or non-electrified line workings, amidst the streams of EMUs. An exception was seeing the modernistic 4PEP (Pack ’em Perpendicular) unit a few times, that I’d been very keen to see. Although the novelty of the entire new SR scene kept alive my interest, the monotony also dulled it somewhat.
A 445/9 set 5901 passes through Vauxhall on 7th January 1978 – the period I was commuting from New Malden. The station is utilitarian concrete Southern Region, and in the distance are the first of the office blocks that would come to dominate this area. 780107A01-VXH-e5901-PAS_D
Other new sights for me on the occasional visit north of the river were jumper boxes fitted to 86018 and 87011; 87101 bearing the name ‘Stephenson’ and 25180 propelling an OLE train at Euston. My first Class 47 silver roof sighting was 47150; and 08531 as Liverpool Street Pilot surprised me with it’s white roof. I ended the year returning to my old haunt of West Cornwall for Christmas, noting en route that 08779 had a serif typeface instead of the official one (maybe they were using up old transfers), and seeing a line of eight locos stabled in Penzance’s platform 1 on Christmas Day. But none of the fare to be found there, nor on familiar stretches of the Western Region, with the exception of remnants of my heyday interests like the hulk of 1009 on Laira depot, had much allure for me any longer.
Finished in Stratford’s hallmark silver roof distinction, 47172 “County of Hertfordshire” runs light engine under the recently installed catenary at Liverpool Street Station on 29th August 1979. On the wall behind buddleias grow from Broad Street Station. 790829A01-LST-47172-LIG_D
The Eric Curnow Collection 