Locomotives & Recollections: D1015 Western Champion

By John Whitehouse (softback, www.mortonsbooks.co.uk/silverlink, 80pp, £10, ISBN 978-1-857-94588-1)

CLASS 52 WR diesel hydraulic D1015 Western Champion

has had a very busy 2022 running season on the Severn Valley Railway where it is based. It came to the fore on services during periods when steam was banned due to the freak summer weather; during 42 days of running, it covered more than 2100 miles.

This is the 118th volume in The Nostalgia Collection’s Recollections Series, which offer budget-priced locomotive biographies packed with essential facts alongside quality pictures and covers golden ochre liveried D1015’s BR history – from its launch into traffic on January 21, 1963, until withdrawal on December 13, 1976.

Awaiting the seemingly inevitable visit to the scrapyard, at one minute to midnight in stepped the Diesel Traction Group and saved it from the condemned line at Swindon Works. It returned to the main line in 2002, and this handy-sized volume has quality pictures of its heritage-era exploits at destination like Holyhead, Kyle of Lochalsh and Great Yarmouth, all far cries from its stomping ground of old.

The most recent images show D1015 in BR blue livery on the SVR in 2020.

POCKET PORTRAIT OF A POPULAR DIESEL