The Class 08 diesel shunters are amongst the most successful locomotives ever to run on Britain’s railways – yet they are often ignored by enthusiasts and modellers. EVAN GREEN-HUGHES argues this is a situation which should change.
Whether your layout is set in the last flowering of steam or in any of the periods covering the half a century that followed one class of locomotive that can rightfully be included in your collection is the English Electric Class 08 shunter. These box-like six wheeled machines have tackled every duty from marshalling yards to station pilots and in the process have carried more liveries than almost any other class that has ever existed. Their rugged simplicity has seen them through the jet age, the space race and the invention of computers, their usefulness dating from a time when the mobile phone existed only in science fiction and when Britain was still a major world power with a huge Empire.
The Class 08 shunter, or the ‘350’ as railwaymen prefer to call it after the horsepower of its engine, has managed to outlive all the other Modernisation Plan shunter designs by a handsome margin, and even today there are a handful left on the main line as well as a considerable number at work daily on our …
