Class 40 returns to Skegness and Class 45 back at York

July 27 was a busy day for main line-registered heritage diesels, with the Class 40 Preservation Society’s D345 making the first visit of a Class 40 to Skegness for 40 years.

The locomotive arrived on a Pathfinder Railtours charter from Burton-on-Trent, having run in a pair with West Coast Railways’ 37706 as far as Crewe, via Birmingham. After Crewe the ‘37’ was on the rear.

The ’40’ then took the train to Manchester and ran via the route of the old Manchester-Skegness holiday train, which ran until 1984 and was the last booked passenger duty for the type. It headed along the Hope Valley to Sheffield (see News in Pictures, page 24-25), then on via Worksop, Retford, Lincoln, Sleaford and Boston.

The return train was delayed by an hour owing to an infrastructure issue at Skegness, and headed via Nottingham and back to Birmingham. Some of the itinerary was cut out in the Birmingham area to save time, and the train had to terminate at Crewe and not continue to Manchester Piccadilly as booked.

Also on July 27, Locomotive Services Limited’s 45118 The Royal Artilleryman worked from Bristol Temple Meads to York - the first ‘45’ on a main line passenger train for 16 years.

The train replicated a classic Class 45 route from the 1970s and 1980s, when ‘Peaks’ worked on the North East/South West cross-country route between Newcastle and Penzance.

The day before, the ‘45’ had run into problems while working the empty coaching stock near Abergavenny. It was assisted by 47810 Crewe Diesel Depot to Bristol, where the fault was diagnosed and fixed.

For insurance, the ‘47’ was kept on the rear of the train for the Saturday, but the ‘Peak’ performed faultlessly all day.

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