All Our Yesterdays – 50 Years Ago –May 1961

Extracts from the RCTS Railway Observer from 50 years ago.

Diesel and Electric locomotive building was in full swing with British Railways workshops at Darlington building class 10’s and class 25’s, Horwich building class 08’s, Doncaster building class 03’s, Derby building class 45 “Peaks”, Crewe building class 45 “Peaks” and Swindon building class 03’s and class 42’s. Locomotive contractors were also in production with English Electric building at Vulcan Foundry class 40’s, class 37’s, class 55 Deltics and class 83 electric locomotives. Also English Electric were building at the Robert Stephensons and Hawthorn works, Darlington class 20’s and class 40’s. British Thompson and Houston were building class 81 electric locomotives, Brush were building class 30’s (31’s) at Loughborough, Beyer Peacock at Manchester commenced delivery of class 35 “Hymeks”, North British Locomotive Co. at Glasgow were building class 43’s, the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Co. were building class 33’s and Drewry were building class 04’s at the Robert Stephensons and Hawthorn works Darlington.

New locomotives:
Class 03 – D2192/93/94, D2389
Class 04 – D2327
Class 08 – D4013/14/15/16/17
Class 10 – D4067/68/69
Class 20 – D8057/58/59/60/61/62
Class 25 – D5152/53/54
Class 30 – D5696/97/98
Class 33 – D6553/54/55
Class 35 – D7000
Class 37 – D6715/17
Class 40 – D323/41/42/43/44/45/46/47
Class 42 – D868 Zephyr
Class 43 – D849 Superb
Class 45 – D27/28/29/30/98/99, D100/01/02
Class 55 – D9004/05
Class 81 – E3017/20
Class 83 – E3304

The first Hymek (class 35) D7000 entered service.

For the Rugby League Cup Final at Wembley on the 13th May 1961 thirty four special trains arrived in London.

Class 03 D2387 has arrived at Monument Lane MPD, Birmingham for crew training. Two further examples are to be allocated to allow them to take over duties currently undertaken by Midland Railway 2F 0-6-0’s.

A number of the above were photographed later in life and can be found in this collection. As always feedback and comments welcome

D4014 (08846) – http://www.flickr.com/photos/pics-by-john/5668237925/
D4067 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/pics-by-john/5695151367/
D5696 (31266) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/pics-by-john/5696764638/
D342 – http://www.flickr.com/photos/pics-by-john/5663153863/
D345 – http://www.flickr.com/photos/pics-by-john/5696768086/
D30 (45029) – http://www.flickr.com/photos/pics-by-john/5696257479/
D99 (45135) – http://www.flickr.com/photos/pics-by-john/5696828730/
D100 (45060) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/pics-by-john/5698566282/
D101 (45061) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/pics-by-john/5698774098/
D9004 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/pics-by-john/5653390361/
D9005 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/pics-by-john/5698198729/
E3017 (81015) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/pics-by-john/5698831910/
E3304 (83014) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/pics-by-john/5698261223/