ICONFESS the only time I got to ride in the cab of a Class 45 at Derby was as a young, wide-eyed rail enthusiast rather than as a member of train crew, but several examples of the class were still knocking around when I started at 4 Shed in 1990.
Derby was essentially the spiritual home of the ‘Peaks’, and no driver I spoke to ever had a bad word to say about them. Although restricted to 90mph, they were thrashed to within an inch of their lives up and down the Midland Main Line, but still came back for more.
My first trainman job at Derby in 1990 was acting as secondman on an engineering train, headed by No. 47971 Robin Hood, which had been tasked to assist in the lifting of the Mickleover Test Track accessed from the Up Stoke at Egginton Junction.
At the time, there were half a dozen derelict Class 45s stored in the sidings there (Nos. 45111/125/126/136/146/148), most of which had been drafted in from the scrap lines at March depot to act as dead weight loads during the Class 60 testing conducted between July 1989 and May 1990.
During these tests, the Class 60 had struggled to maintain air pressure throughout the train, so one of the traction inspectors decided to fire up the Class 45s to assist. Even though these locos had been left to rot, most started first time and worked perfectly. For operational reasons, only four of the locos were used as train weight, with No. 45148 remaining in the headshunt at Mickleover during testing.
Someone became a little overzealous and removed the connection between the Up Stoke line and the sidings shortly after the test track had been lifted – so, in typical railway fashion, it had to be temporarily reinstated in March 1992 to extricate the derelict ‘45s’.
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Denne historien er fra November 2019-utgaven av Rail Express.
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LNER puts remaining ‘91s' into warm store
The ongoing pandemic restrictions and major engineering works have resulted in the complete withdrawal of the last remaining ‘Electras’ from passenger service, although the plan is to resurrect them in the summer.
Mk.1 Restaurant-Buffet (RBR) cars
A SURPRISING number of Mk.1catering cars have survived to see service on the privatised railway, in private operator and charter trains. They may turn up on anything from an enthusiast special to higher-end dining trains and have been formed in trains as prestigious as the locomotive-hauledBlue Pullman’ set, the ‘Great Britain’ tours operated by West Coast Railways and the ‘Northern Belle’ tour train.
Powerscene
Our authoritative class-by-class review of newsworthy locomotive workings.
End for Freightliner Class 86/6s
The company’s Class 86/6 fleet down to just two examples as seven locos are stored.
Service reductions as Covid cases increase
An increase in Covid-19 cases in early January saw the governments in Ireland and Northern Ireland impose stricter lockdown measures that impacted on public transport.
East West Rail funding go-ahead
Although it was expected, £760 million of funding has now been confirmed to build the Western Section of the East West Railway scheme.
Travellers-Fare with Hornby's Mk.1 Restaurant-Buffet car
Hornby expands its range of retooled ‘OO’ gauge Mk.1 coaches with a brand new tooling for the Diagram 24 Restaurant-Buffet car (RB) and the Diagram 33 refurbished version (RBR). It models the vehicles in both original form, finished in BR maroon and Southern Region green, together with the RBR refurbished coaches. They remained in frontline service well into the 1990s, including Cross-Country workings.
Class 92 revolution
Despite its complex shape and high detail ratio compared to other modern six-axle locomotives, Revolution Trains chose the Class 92 to be its first 'N' gauge locomotive model.
Bottling it!
A dig into the Rail Express archive has revealed some rarely-seen photographs of the former rail-connected Express Dairy bottling plant in South West London, which today is the site of a large mosque.
1990s ‘N' gauge Class 950
Work on the ‘N’ gauge Class 950 Track Recording Unit project, a conversion based on a standard Graham Farish Class 150/1 model, is concluded by finishing the model in 1990s condition.