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Page last Updated : 06-04-08
Gary Stratford (aka the Buzzard) recalls...
"Looking at the diary pages for December 23rd 1984, there was a slight error
for the working of 56097. It actually dragged 86221 from Birmingham New St
to Wolves via Soho, Perry Barr and Bescot and most definitely did not work
from Nuneaton. Indeed as a result of the proximity of this Sunday to
Christmas, all the Euston-Wolves trains were retimed with 30 minute shorter
journey times due to the general reduction in planned engineering works
hence 56097 dragged the 1230 Euston-Wolverhampton. I had learned of this
Birmingham-Wolves dragging as a result of covering the Christmas holiday
relief's which at the time were a good source of dying out, in England
anyway, steam heat power. As far as I can remember there were only two other
engines working draggs and these were sampled too (47521/50016). I assume 50016
also dragged an electric though I did not record it if it did. The "Grid"
was basically a classic kick-out turn (no doubt a welcome Christmas present
from the God of fixes!) and was due to return dragging 1G06 , however, the
work must have finished early and 86246, rare Sunday power for this train,
continued direct to Brum. My loco hauled moves for the day:
86214 Rugby-Birmingham New St (1G24 1030 Euston-Wolves)
47521 New St-Wolves via Soho/Bescot (1G24 1030 Euston-Wolves) - assume dragging 86214
50016 Wolves-New St via Bescot/Soho (1V84 1125 Liverpool-Penzance) - dragging ???
56097 New St-Wolves via Soho/Bescot (1G28 1230 Euston-Wolves) - dragging 86221
86246 Wolves-New St direct (1G06 1305 Man Picc-New St)
47491 New St-Coventry (1O21 1416 Preston-Poole)
47616 Coventry-International (1M15 1444 Gatwick-Man Picc)
47432 International-Coventry (1O92 1521 Leeds-Portsmouth)
81021 Coventry-Rugby (1A36 1757 Wolves-Euston)
If anyone can complete the full picture with the electric dragged by 50016,
I would be most grateful."
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