D1501 to move to Peak Rail

47, D1501, will move from its current home on the East Lancashire Railway to a new base at Rowsley South on Peak Rail. The locomotive, which is owned by the Waterman Railways Heritage Trust (WRHT), has spent its entire time in preservation in the care of the ELR’S diesel department. After running in BR blue as 47402 Gateshead for many years, it was returned to D1501 in as-built condition in 2010. A further bodywork overhaul and repaint in 2017 saw it retain its original two-tone BR green identity.

D1501 is operational and has been a popular member of the ELR diesel fleet throughout the time it has been in use at Bury. Its final services on the ELR were expected to take place on the weekend of April 2/3, just before this issue of Railways Illustrated was due to go on sale.

Its arrival will bolster Peak Rail’s operational fleet, which currently has a requirement for most trains to be operated in top-and-tail formation, with a steam locomotive at one end of the train and a diesel locomotive at the other.

Brush-built D1501 celebrates its 60th anniversary in November, having been released into BR traffic on November 13, 1962. The locomotive, along with 47401, was one of the final two members of the initial 20 Class 47/4 locomotives to survive in traffic with BR, before being preserved by Pete

Waterman in 1993, making its debut at Bury at that summer’s diesel event. The WRHT has established an engineering base at Rowsley South in recent years and D1501 will join operational D7659 and stored 46035, owned by the WRHT and based at Peak Rail. Several steam locomotives belonging to the WRHT are also on the line, with GWR 2-6-2T 5553 recently returned to service following overhaul, while work continues on returning GWR 2-8-2T 5224 to operational use.

Peak Rail is also home to 37310 British Steel Ravenscraig, D8 Penyghent, 50029 Renown and 50030 Repulse, and a large number of diesel shunting locomotives under the auspices of the Heritage Shunters Trust and Andrew Briddon Locomotives.

Class 47s will still be represented at the ELR by Mark Fowler’s Scotrail-liveried 47765, which is based on the railway.

Tom Mcatee With a layer of frost on the ground and in a scene that could be from the 1960s, D1501 hauls a rake of maroon Mk.1 coaches climbing Broadfield Bank, between Bury and Heywood on the East Lancashire Railway, on February 7, 2020.