Are ‘friends' electric?
WHEN Tubeway Army (see what I did there?) released its seminal electropop track back in 1979, the move to second generation EMUs (based on ‘PEP' prototypes) on British Rail was well underway.
Class 313s had taken over Great Northern Electrics suburban services out of King's Cross and Moorgate from 1976, Class 314s were arriving in Scotland for North Clyde services and Class 315s were about to replace the venerable ‘306s' (of Gresley ancestry, no less) on London Anglia suburban routes. Outrageously, not a single ‘PEP' car survives (the last was scrapped as recently as 1990) and the survival of many ‘31X' cars from the classes above is far from assured.
The first Class 313 is destined for the NRM when the class finishes work on the South Coast (see our In the Cab feature on page 82), but Class 314 is already withdrawn (though one survives in test use). The Class 315 Preservation Society announced earlier this summer it believes it has secured a four-car example for posterity. But, overall, the track record in EMU preservation isn't great.
Some classes (e.g. 305) were made extinct without any serious attempts to save them and those that have survived, like the Class 309 ‘Clacton' unit currently up for sale
(see page 32) and a whole ‘306' mentioned previously, are not in the best of health.
While the last-minute rescue of a single Class 442 vehicle (also page 32) should be celebrated, without a proper home for EMU vehicles – the tragic closure of Coventry's Electric Railway Museum in 2017 underscores the point – the long-term future of many of them is questionable. There is a real danger that we are doing our electric friends a huge disservice by letting important parts of our railway heritage slip away. Surely, it is more economic to preserve them properly now, rather than re-create them as new-builds
(see last month's Comment) once their true value is finally appreciated? Mark Simmons