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Class 30/31 early examples with small yellow warning ends


Windjabbers
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Hi, 

 

Just looking for an example of an East Anglian based Class 30/31 which received its small yellow ends early. 
 

Understand that they started application in 1962 but would like to identify a loco that had an early application especially if it’s before Stratford/ Cambridge etc closed to steam in the summer of 1962.

 

thanks

 

David 

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I seem to recall this being covered in another thread - I'm sure there was a photo of an early Class 30 with the white window surrounds having received small yellow warning panels. Since these began to appear in early 1962 it shouldn't be too surprising that there were still a few of the Pilot Scheme locos in original condition still around, although they weren't guaranteed to get the yellow treatment straightaway.

I've skimmed through the Class 31 Photos thread, also one on Class 30/31 differences - no luck. Can anyone remember where this was?

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Neil, both D5501 and D5515 received yellow warning panels whilst still sporting white window surrounds. D5517 also lost its white window surrounds at least a year before receiving the yellow warning panels. As far as I can tell only D5513 and D5514 received full yellow ends whilst in green livery, and of course D5518 but that was another story! Rail On-Line has a picture of D5515 on its site and Colour-Rail used to have a slide of D5501.

I have quite a few shots of green with syp images on my Brush Veteran Flickr site which may be of use to Windjabbers.

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16 minutes ago, BrushVeteran said:

Neil, both D5501 and D5515 received yellow warning panels whilst still sporting white window surrounds. D5517 also lost its white window surrounds at least a year before receiving the yellow warning panels. As far as I can tell only D5513 and D5514 received full yellow ends whilst in green livery, and of course D5518 but that was another story! Rail On-Line has a picture of D5515 on its site and Colour-Rail used to have a slide of D5501.

I have quite a few shots of green with syp images on my Brush Veteran Flickr site which may be of use to Windjabbers.

Thanks 

 

What I’m specifically after is an example of loco getting it’s yellow warning panel before June 1962. 
 

So have had a very enjoyable good look at Brush Veteran Flickr site. Has a picture of D5656 at York May 62! Was a 41A loco at the time so not EA, but does start to answer the question. 

 

Thanks 

 

David

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1 hour ago, BrushVeteran said:

Neil, both D5501 and D5515 received yellow warning panels whilst still sporting white window surrounds. D5517 also lost its white window surrounds at least a year before receiving the yellow warning panels. As far as I can tell only D5513 and D5514 received full yellow ends whilst in green livery, and of course D5518 but that was another story! Rail On-Line has a picture of D5515 on its site and Colour-Rail used to have a slide of D5501.

I have quite a few shots of green with syp images on my Brush Veteran Flickr site which may be of use to Windjabbers.

 

Aha, that explains why D5515 came to mind, many thanks Grahame (big fan of your Flickr site BTW, right 'up my street'!) I've just checked my copy of Strathwood's 'Looking Back at Class 31 Locomotives' and guess what, there's a photo of D5501 with white surrounds and yellow panels in the intro which I'd forgotten about! Dated September 1963. 

 

David, either D5501 or D5515 would make an interesting change from the usual liveries, although it would require adding yellow panels to a renumbered Hornby model and I can't be sure whether either of them gained the panels by mid-1962.

 

Regarding the production locos, I've looked through my six volumes of Strathwood's 'Sixties Diesel and Electric Days Remembered' and only D5645 on King's Cross Stabling Point on 25/2/62 fits the bill (in Volume 1). Captions have to be treated with caution but the surrounding locos would seem to support the date. The only other candidate I found was D5830 at Potters Bar on 21/4/62, in Brian Haresnape's 'British Rail Fleet Survey 4'. Both of these are technically on the 'wrong ER main line' of course but my bookcase is heavily biased towards the Western Region in general and diesel-hydraulics in particular so I'm not best placed to answer questions on 1960s Class 31s! :D But at least I've tried......

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10 hours ago, Neil Phillips said:

 

Aha, that explains why D5515 came to mind, many thanks Grahame (big fan of your Flickr site BTW, right 'up my street'!) I've just checked my copy of Strathwood's 'Looking Back at Class 31 Locomotives' and guess what, there's a photo of D5501 with white surrounds and yellow panels in the intro which I'd forgotten about! Dated September 1963. 

 

David, either D5501 or D5515 would make an interesting change from the usual liveries, although it would require adding yellow panels to a renumbered Hornby model and I can't be sure whether either of them gained the panels by mid-1962.

 

Regarding the production locos, I've looked through my six volumes of Strathwood's 'Sixties Diesel and Electric Days Remembered' and only D5645 on King's Cross Stabling Point on 25/2/62 fits the bill (in Volume 1). Captions have to be treated with caution but the surrounding locos would seem to support the date. The only other candidate I found was D5830 at Potters Bar on 21/4/62, in Brian Haresnape's 'British Rail Fleet Survey 4'. Both of these are technically on the 'wrong ER main line' of course but my bookcase is heavily biased towards the Western Region in general and diesel-hydraulics in particular so I'm not best placed to answer questions on 1960s Class 31s! :D But at least I've tried......

Neil, thanks for you assistance - I’ve got a copy of the Haresnape book somewhere so I will take a look. But the answer does seem to be that some 30/31 did start to receive yellow warning panel early - May 1962. 
 

I will keep looking. 
 

Best Wishes

 

David

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This may not help much, but in "Eastern Steam Days Remembered II" there is a picture of J69/1 68499 shunting a BTH Type 1 outside Stratford Works, and on an adjacent line is a Brush Type 2 ex works with a small yellow panel.  The Brush Type 2's number isn't clear (at least not to my eyes!) but it looks like D552x (could be D5520?).  Unfortunately the caption doesn't give a date for the picture, but according to the BR Database 68499 was allocated to Stratford from 17.06.61 until it was withdrawn on 16.09.62.

 

In fact it's a Colour Rail picture; search on Class J69/1 and you will find it, however the steam loco is wrongly described as '68599', but no date is given on their web site, either.

 

https://colourrail.co.uk/gallery/steam

 

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6 hours ago, Windjabbers said:

Neil, thanks for you assistance - I’ve got a copy of the Haresnape book somewhere so I will take a look. But the answer does seem to be that some 30/31 did start to receive yellow warning panel early - May 1962. 
 

I will keep looking. 
 

Best Wishes

 

David

 

Generally speaking it appears that January 1962 was the yellow panel kick-off month, but it was a wobbly start! I can be precise about such things on the WR - D859 was the first Warship into traffic brand new with panels 9/1/62 (ignoring the D845 experiment from 9/61). The first Swindon-built Warship to acquire them, during a works visit, was D822 from 26/1/62. First Hymek was D7020 from new 8/2/62 (the memo must have been delayed/ignored for a while). The Westerns were complicated by Swindon thinking it could get away with just painting the bufferbeam area yellow (since when was that ever going to be a good idea?!)

 

Checking the listings in the 'Modern Locomotives Illustrated' No 189 on the Class 31s (hmmm.....should that not have been 'Classes 30 & 31'?), that says D5828-31 were delivered January 1962, D5832/3 February, D5834 March and D5835-8 April. Yellow panels becoming standard from new must have occurred somewhere in here. D5839-62 must surely have been delivered new with them. Maybe that helps too.

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On 06/09/2021 at 23:05, BrushVeteran said:

D5825 was the first Brush Type 2 to be outshopped from Brush Traction with a yellow panel

Thanks for the info, It does seem that the first of the class to receive the yellow waring panel were those based at Darnal?

 

Best Wishes

 

David

 

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5 hours ago, The Border Reiver said:

Slightly later than 1962 but here are 4 class 31 D5635 D554? D5591 D5595 and a class 08 at Stratford shed in 1963

 

RRA1_08_20170121_0008_1200.jpg.1304491696323508d5271c4ab27f5dcd.jpg

Which shows clearly why the yellow ends were made standard for years.

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