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Class 26 in early grey railfreight livery


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  • RMweb Gold

I've been contemplating a purchase of the Railfreight Grey 26 for sometime, largely for nostalgic reasons,

 

I'm not sure if my memory is playing tricks with me?

 

-did any have red running the whole way along the solebar

- some pictures I have seen have red as far as the cab doors- ie from the bufferbeam to the cab door- but did any carry this red stripe the full length of loco.

- I dont think any got the proper 'redstripe' livery as per class 31/37/47 etc which included a red bodyside stripe, yet I'm still sure I recall some having a red stripe on the underframe.

 

I've just been looking through this lot - and still not drawn any conclusions!

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Hi Russ

If my memory serves me correctly I seem to remember 26010 was the first 26 to receive railfreight red stripe livery in August 1985. I photographed it at Haymarket Depot open day in 1985 when it was fresh out of the works. This was the first 26 in Railfreight grey livery and I'm sure it had a red solebar the whole length of the loco. I will try and scan my slides and post them on the site later.

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  • RMweb Gold

Hi Russ

If my memory serves me correctly I seem to remember 26010 was the first 26 to receive railfreight red stripe livery in August 1985. I photographed it at Haymarket Depot open day in 1985 when it was fresh out of the works. This was the first 26 in Railfreight grey livery and I'm sure it had a red solebar the whole length of the loco. I will try and scan my slides and post them on the site later.

Thanks - the Flickr site I was looking at was dated 1989 which would have allowed them to get 'cacked up' a pic of an ex-works condition loco would be great! as it is I'm sure Heljan have got it at least part wrong- though not bad enough to get worked up over- will just get the paint cans out!

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Hi Russ

 

all of the 26s that were painted into Railfreight Grey received a red solebar but as Vince's pics show they did get grubby quickly.

 

Cheers Bry

 

PS Vince those pics are fantastic, dont suppose you have anymore shots of 26005, i dont remember it having those numbers on the nose end, did it carry them at both ends???

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- I dont think any got the proper 'redstripe' livery as per class 31/37/47 etc which included a red bodyside stripe, ...

 

 

 

Small mercies, eh :D To me, RSR worked best on those locos where the design naturally accomodated it (like 20s), and not where it was artificially blathered up the side...

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Minor thread diversion politely requested.

 

I notice that 26001/5 have the later style secondary suspension, coil rather than leaf sprung. When were the 26/0s modded, and were they all done? I was under the mistaken belief that they were leaf sprung up to 5319 (in old money).

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Minor thread diversion politely requested.

 

I notice that 26001/5 have the later style secondary suspension, coil rather than leaf sprung. When were the 26/0s modded, and were they all done? I was under the mistaken belief that they were leaf sprung up to 5319 (in old money).

 

I always understood it had happened during refurbishment in the mid-80s Chard, along with the other minor alterations in similar vein such as substitution of sliding cab lights instead of drops on 'ex-English' 26s and 27s. I've never troubled to specifically check it out against photos, and thus I wouldnt like to say whether it happened on all refurbed 26/0s - it might have depended on the availability of fully coil-sprung bogies from withdrawn locos

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To the best of my (admittedly limited!) knowledge, bogie swaps occurred randomly during overhauls so a few later 26s ended up with the transverse leaf sprung bogies and some, but not all, early ones gained the coil sprung versions.

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As already indicated it seems to have been pretty arbitary - D5310 in preservation (recently moved from Bo'ness to Llangollen) has the earlier type.  (Along with a number of other changes to "backdate" the appearance to match the livery.)  

 

Presumably, if the later ones were "better" there might have been a more concentrated standardisation policy, but that's just a thought.

 

See: http://26010.fotopic.net/ for some ideas of the restoration work undertaken.

 

And here at new home: http://llangollendieselgroup.org.uk/page/category/loco-fleet/26010/

 

Cheers,

 

26power

 

 

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I always understood it had happened during refurbishment in the mid-80s Chard, along with the other minor alterations in similar vein such as substitution of sliding cab lights instead of drops on 'ex-English' 26s and 27s. I've never troubled to specifically check it out against photos, and thus I wouldnt like to say whether it happened on all refurbed 26/0s - it might have depended on the availability of fully coil-sprung bogies from withdrawn locos

 

Definately 26010 & 26014 ended their working lives with leaf-springs. I have shots of 26012 & 26013 taken in 1982, both still with leaf-springs - I believe they were withdrawn soon after this, so doubt whether they had coil-springs fitted. I have shots of all the others (with the exception 26009, 26016 & 26017 that were withdrawn in 1976-1977 with leafs), with coils including 26020 which also went in 1977. Of the later batch, 26021 is the only one I can confirm that saw service fitted with leaf-springs. I have a photo of 26045 fitted with them, but the loco was withdrawn, so they may only have been second-hand; its own bogies being donated to a 26/0.

 

The long-and-short of it, is that 26009, 010, 012, 013 014, 016 and 017 didn't get the coil-springs................

 

HTH, Ron.

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