1961 A Difficult Transition Continues
s winter turned towards spring and the need to provide steam heat for at least the day-time services ceased, if not the sleeping car services, the availability of the Type 4 diesels improved. It was decided to place all of the ‘Princess Royals’ into store, serviceable if required. One reason for that decision may have been the start of the arrival of a further batch of a dozen English Electric Type 4s together with an improvement in availability and reliability of the earlier arrivals. From the end of January ‘The Caledonian’ service in each direction was entrusted to a diesel. All except No. 46204 (May) were stored from early March and all except No 46201 (remained in store until January 1962) and Nos. 46210/12 (condemned in October 1961) were returned to service from either the June or July of 1961. Two were returned to store in late August (Nos. 46204/11) and condemned in October While a further pair Were stored from mid-September (Nos. 46205/7) and condemned in the November. The other five members of the class were returned to store, serviceable from end August/early September and remained in store until late January 1962 when No. 46201 also re-entered service. In the times in service during 1961 the Class accumulated some 140,000 miles although no total could be found by the writer for No. 46210. Around that time the Regional Accountant found a stronger voice in meetings and that resulted in
