Seen one - seen them all by Robin Morel
Robin Morel recalls his numerous encounters with the Class 47s during his time working at Wembley Yard
Type 4, ‘Brush’, ‘Duff’ or ‘Spoon’ (after the warning horn tones), call them what you will, the humble Class 47 was an everyday sight painted in Railfreight Distribution (RFD) sub sector livery or the newer European colour scheme. The staple motive power of choice for RFD, Tinsley depot had many Class 47/0s and 47/3s on its books with the London Paddington traction and maintenance based resource controllers having daily battles to provide enough diesel traction for the ever increasing Channel Tunnel bound feeder services and the handful of Connectrail services that still ran.
Whilst on the outside the fl eet appeared standard, many factors influenced loco allocation, be it twin or single fuel tank, multiple working fi tment (green circle) and dedicated locos for automotive based fl ows, let alone engine hours, tyre profi le and next exam due date. Almost like looking for a used car, some very non standard locos appeared in the fl eet, mainly to cover for other locos having multiple working equipment gear fi tted. They were all that was available ‘on the lot’ so were snapped up quickly.
Imagine the fun when the friendly Wembley Yard signaller phoned up and offered on a light engine for the holding sidings when everything was full and no light loco was expected.
“Have him in on reception one,” I told the signaller. “I’m not expecting any locos, I’ll see what it is”.
Wembley yard had its own radio network that allowed cab NRN radios to be keyed to a local channel and everyone could hear what was going on. Drivers of approaching trains could change from the mainline frequency to the yard frequency to listen in on how the yard was running and to see what disposal arrangements were required. Even better they could hear if one of the yard ‘ferry’ drivers would be waiting to relieve them and take the loco either to the holding sidings or onto its next rake of wagons to be worked back.
“Freight 1 (the call sign for the Train Crew Supervisor) to the driver on reception one,” I barked over the radio.
“Driver here on Reception 1 over,” came the reply.
“Yes driver, what’s your loco number please – over?”
“47813,” came the reply. Outrage! It’s a passenger ETH fi tted loco in a freight yard, so clearly NOT for me. It must need the nearby Intercity depot and all my loco sidings are full.
“I’ll stick you in the customs sidings driver- leaves her running please.”
The signaller (also with a radio) was contacted and set the route. I rang my opposite number at the Inter City depot, “Expecting a light loco then?”
“Nope not for us,” came the reply.
47 813 along with 47 525 (more later), 47 540 (the former 47 975) and 47 555 had been snapped up on the ‘car lot’ of available motive power, sold as seen and allocated to RfD pool. Hmm, nice to be told!.
47 525’s arrival however caused something of a stir due to its ghost like faded paintwork. Legend has it that whilst
working towards Wembley from the West Midlands, permanent way staff working south of Bletchley had reported to the signalman that the approaching freight train was very hard to see with the sun shining on the faded warning yellow cab end making it almost invisible to the lookout men watching out for the gangers.
The signalman at Bletchley duly reported the permanent way gang’s finding to the route controller who then instructed the signalman to advise the driver to proceed at a slower speed, making ample use of the warning horn; all this despite the high intensity headlight being on and working! I was asked to meet the loco on arrival and 47525 was indeed ghost like so this was reported to the fl eet controller who was most impressed being minus another loco.
Such was the shortage of power you can imagine the shock when ‘525’ appeared again a few days later after being towed north but only having its cab end and sides repainted! Such was the demand for motive power, the staff at Tinsley did what was required to get the warning yellow end repainted; the rest of the loco could wait.
Both ‘525’ and ‘555’ subsequently had the magic Tinsley paintbrush effect applied. 47813 left the fl eet as it arrived in unbranded Intercity colours whilst 47540 kept its Dutch livery throughout.
47540 was on hand at Wembley during the evening of Thursday August 8th 1996 when the head on collision between two EMUs occurred at Watford Junction The West Coast Main Line was blocked on all lines so the following night it worked light to Euston to head a Scottish postal via the ‘DC’ new lines between Camden and Watford.
Several staff from the booking on point went over to the nearby Stonebridge Park station to see this service pass (closet spotters I’m sure) and it produced shortly after at a snail’s pace to comply with speed and signalling regulations for non trip-cock fi tted trains, unlike the Class 313 and 1972 stock tube trains that normally worked the route. The overnight sleeper services were cancelled but the mess room banter called for lots of overtime diesel hauling the ‘Beds’ via the DC lines until someone mentioned that Mark 3 coaches would not fi t around the Bushey station curve on the DC lines without scraping the platform copings
Another strange visitor in connection with the collision was 47972. This loco had been fi tted with an emergency tightlock coupler that saw the screw coupling shackle removed and a tightlock knuckle hung on the drawhook. This loco then crept up to Watford to remove parts of the undamaged units under the cover of darkness, the overhead line still being isolated north of Headstone Lane.
A main reservoir pipe carried on the electric unit had a normal coupling (yellow) at one end and a plug in type valve on the other. Known as a Schrader hose, fi tting this and the tightlock knuckle was all very labour intensive but allowed the failed electric unit to be moved at a snail’s pace.
To complete the array of visitors, when Stratford drivers came over to collect locos for fuel and the normal Stratford ‘taxi’ (a Class 37) was not available, 47711, in NSE livery, was often used despite being relegated to infrastructure work by that time. 47674 also put in a rare appearance with the Stratford breakdown train unit and crane after tidying up following a tank train derailment between Camden Road and Primrose Hill.
The nearby Rail Express System Railnet operation had separate train crew accommodation after a while. We can’t have class one drivers mixing with freight men! The small holding sidings had limited capacity for postal locos, but when room was at a premium, space was always found at Wembley for any loco wanting a home, including 47475 amongst others.
The engine arranger’s pad on my desk was mainly full with Class 47/0s and 47/3s so frequently that only the last three digits where recorded, but the few odd locos in the fl eet certainly helped out during the traction shortage times even if they did give the resource and maintenance controllers a headache being non standard in more ways than one.
On more than one occasion my relief would say at shift handover time, “That’s not one of ours” or “You’ve written that down wrong” when a Class 47/4 appeared on the sheet. However, as I was frequently reminded, with ‘47s’ if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all!