Trains withdrawn from the national network are usually destined for a one-way trip to the scrapyard, but for a lucky few a further life awaits as a result of reengineering. EVAN GREEN-HUGHES explains all in the concluding part of our Railway Realism trilogy on stock changes on today’s railway.
Above: Porterbrook’s first passenger version of the re-engineered Class 47s, Class 57 57601, passes North Brewham with the 7.35am Plymouth-London Paddington on June 27 2002. John Chalcraft/Railphotoprints.uk.
THE IDEA OF MAKING something useful out of something surplus or worn out isn’t exactly new. The Great Western Railway was a master at rebuilding redundant engines - for instance, the ‘Dukedog’ 4-4-0 was constructed using the boiler of a ‘Duke’ amalgamated with the frames of a ‘Bulldog’ while the
London Midland & Scottish Railway produced its first ‘Patriots’ as rebuilds of ‘Claughtons’. However, following nationalisation the practice largely died out, but today it is making a big comeback, with several re-engineered or rebuilt designs now being in service on our railways and with more to follow. In the late 1990s most locomotives in service in the UK were more than three decades old. Reliability was poo…
