THE long-awaited entry to traffic of the first Class 196 took place on October 17, when No. 196101 started on a morning peak diagram between Shrewsbury and Birmingham. Three days earlier, the unit had been named Charles Darwin at Shrewsbury after a press trip from Wolverhampton (see Headline News, p12).
The initial diagram, which runs on weekdays only and is for a four-car unit, covers the following services: 1G05 06.51 Shrewsbury-Birmingham NS, 2J06 08.00 Birmingham NS-Shrewsbury, 1G14 09.11 Shrewsbury-Birmingham NS. The set runs from/to
