Celebrity GWR 150 Class 47 cab transformed

ONE OF the cabs from former GWR 150 celebrity 47500 Great Western has been restored from a stripped-out shell into immaculate condition by its new owner.

Following withdrawal by English Welsh and Scottish Railways, the Class 47 was purchased by West Cast Railways and returned to service painted in WCR’S maroon livery. However, the locomotive was involved in a derailment and fire on January 23, 2013. With it deemed uneconomic to repair, it was stripped for spares.

After component recovery had been completed, the locomotive was scrapped in 2019, but the cabs were offered for sale by WCR, and while one of them was eventually scrapped, the No. 2 cab was purchased by John Andrews, who moved it to his home in the West Midlands, where he set about restoring it.

Mr Andrews bought the cab in February 2020 and spent several months sourcing the components and dials required before starting any serious work on the cab itself.

The cab was in poor condition, having been extensively stripped and with a large hole cut in the drivers’ side cabside.

It was also missing its floor, cab desk, cab doors and bulkhead wall, and most of the remaining interior panelling was damaged and needed replacing.

Restoration of the cab has taken about 17 months, with work being essentially completed towards the end of the summer. It now boasts working interior and exterior lighting and a working cab cooker, as well as an operational horn, fire bell, and AWS sunflower.

Many of the dials and components were sourced online, but Mr Andrews expressed his thanks to the staff at WCR and also members of the Brush Type 4 Fund on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway who helped him considerably with sourcing missing parts.

Rather than repainting the restored cab into its GWR 150 lined green or WCR liveries, Mr Andrews has painted it into Rail Express Systems red and dark grey as 47770 – an identity the locomotive carried between 1994 and its withdrawal by EWS.

Although there are still a small number of jobs that remain outstanding, it is another example of an excellent restoration of a locomotive cab, joining a growing number of modern traction cabs being restored in private ownership.

All photos: John Andrews ABOVE: The preserved No. 2 end cab from 47500 in the West Midlands garden of John Andrews, alongside his garden shed, before any serious restoration work on the cab began. ABOVE: A comparison image of the same cab after repainting, with most work on the restoration complete. The cab is now painted in Rail Express Systems red and dark grey as 47770, although at the time of writing, the cabside numbers and cast Crewe cat emblem are still to be applied, as the cab has been covered over for the winter months to protect it from the elements.

BELOW: The restored interior of the cab from 47500/47770 before the seats were refitted. When purchased from West Coast Railways, the cab was in very poor condition and essentially a derelict shell, making its transformation into an attractive showpiece even more remarkable.