Stop & Examine
Brian Maddison got in touch regarding our Class 31s feature in RAIL 838, as it reminded him of the livery applied to 31558 when it was named Nene Valley Railway in 1994 ( RAIL 224).
“I was the Assistant Civil Engineer (Works) for Intercity East Coast at the time, based in Peterborough and responsible for all the structures on the ECML south of York.
“I had an excellent staff of artisans, but budgets were very tight and it was difficult to find enough work to keep them fully employed. We were being encouraged to prepare for privatisation by taking on outside contracts and we embraced this with gusto, enabling us to show off our expertise and provide my staff with much-needed working opportunities.
“Most of these contracts were for other parts of the railway business - for instance, building a new station at Bentley South Yorkshire PTE and extending platforms for Network SouthEast.
“We won a contract for the construction of a new platform at Orton Mere for Nene Valley Railway, and agreed to provide a locomotive for naming at the opening ceremony. The construction of the platforms went well, but while they were being built, Intercity lost their fleet of locomotives used for engineering works, which were re-allocated to Trainload Freight at Immingham.
“Immingham eventually agreed that they would prepare a Class 31. But when it arrived in Peterborough the excessive cleaning had removed the grey paintwork, exposing the old blue livery underneath. Our painters from the Peterborough depot set to work for two days and nights, repainting the whole locomotive before it was sent to Wansford for Nene Valley staff to apply the final touches.
“It looked very smart but was not quite ‘standard’ infrastructure livery, and prompted RAIL to say that it sported ‘an interesting grey stripe variation’.
“Sadly, when BR was eventually privatised, it was decreed that our works department would be disbanded.
“We were not given the opportunity to show what we could have done in the private sector and many staff were made redundant. I would venture to suggest that this loss of expertise is still being felt today.”