Powerscene
CLASS 20
THE three Direct Rail Services Type 1s recently put out to tender have an interesting pedigree. Nos. 20304/08/09 were originally Nos. D8120, D8187 and D8075 respectively. The latter is the eldest, having entered traffic in July 1961 followed by No. D8120 in March 1962. Considerably younger is No. 20308 (D8187) new in January 1967. Prior to becoming part of the DRS Type 1 fleet in 1994, No. 20304 had worked in France in the RFS pool (as No. 2009) during the construction of the Channel Tunnel. As Nos. 20075 and 20187, these examples made up half of the quartet of British Rail Telecommunications Type 1s (Nos. 20128 and 20131 were the others) during the 1990s, sporting a livery of grey and green.
Towards the end of January, the regular movement of London Underground ‘S’ Stock between Derby, Banbury and West Ruislip was in the hands of Nos. 20132+20311 and 20107+20118. On January 23 for example, the quartet had charge of the 7X10/04.22 Banbury-Chaddesden with LUL sets Nos. 21075/76 and two days later passed Water Orton at 08.50 with sets Nos. 21503/04 on the same service. Departure from Banbury on January 27 was at 01.59, this time transferring sets Nos. 21047/48 from West Ruislip to Derby Litchurch Lane and later taking Nos. 21073/74 back south as the 7X08/16.03 Chaddesden-Banbury.
CLASS 37
PRIOR to its unfortunate altercation with No. 47815 at Barrington on January 18, No. 37884 had taken a trip to Scotland, it being recorded hauling ScotRail EMU No. 320315 from Glasgow Works to Shields depot on January 5 before making the journey in the opposite direction with No. 320314. On January 10, the Type 3 took a dozen JRA box wagons from Wembley Yard to Eastleigh Works via Northampton, Nuneaton, Oxford and Reading and reached Long Marston with a London Northwestern Railway Class 350 unit three days later. By January 15, No. 37884 was at Dollands Moor ready to move five new Caledonian Sleeper Mk.5 coaches to Wembley and thence Polmadie, which was reached at 10.30 the following morning.
DRS pair Nos. 37602+37218 ran light from Motherwell to Inverness on January 4 ready to act as snowplough stand-by locomotives. West Coast Railways, meanwhile, provided No. 37518 at Aberdeen and No. 37516 at Fort William ready to act in a similar capacity if necessary. Indeed, such an occasion occurred on January 19 when ‘ED’ No. 73971 failed at Rannoch while in charge of the 1Y11/04.50 Edinburgh-Fort William sleepers. No. 37516 was already at Spean
