47152 Still Green in 1975

[EddieK]

Recently I blundered into this image of 47152 in two tone green with TOPS numbers and still with three piece fixed grilles.

 

 

The image is dated late April 1975 - how long did this lici last in this condition?

['CHARD]

1 hour ago, EddieK said:

Recently I blundered into this image of 47152 in two tone green with TOPS numbers and still with three piece fixed grilles.

 

 

The image is dated late April 1975 - how long did this lici last in this condition?

 

19th August 1975 it's reported as having gone blue, presumably a works release date back to traffic, so it probably lasted in service in green into the hot summer!

[Halvarras]

I don't recall the summer of '75 being that hot 'Chard (I got a bit damp at the Reading Festival that August!), it was better than 1974 but 1976 was.......well, legendary, for chasing Westerns too! Is that the one you're thinking of?

 

My first sighting of TOPS numbers on a green loco was 08803 at Didcot on 15/2/74, the second at Reading the following day was 31294 (!!) The weekend after that (50 years and 6 days ago, ouch!) I paid my one and only visit to Dai Woodham's Rust Emporium at Barry, by train from Swindon, and it was interesting to note how few locos had been renumbered in South Wales compared to over the border. No green TOPS  locos were seen that day, it was the following weekend that I would clap eyes on my third example and first green Class 47 at Reading - 47152 (I got to the point eventually!) I made a note in my spotting book that the number had been applied in the same bodyside position as on blue 47s - the WR did this to all of its green 47s, as did the ScR; the ER applied them to the cabside and the LMR did both, although bodyside numbers were less common (47109/264/333 come to mind).

 

47152 had previously been D1745, which sticks in the memory because at one stage it displayed 'D1745' in block serif numbers at one end and '1745' in the new font at the other - such mixes were not particularly rare but retention of the 'D' prefix was by then. I can't say what the other side looked like though.

 

I visited Crewe Works in March 1976 and found the last vac-only 47s there, in various stages of overhaul, identifiable by those fixed roof grilles (plus a bit of knowledge about the last survivors!) 47148 (ex-1741) was an interesting case as I recorded it in green livery then in 'ex-works' blue.......except that it couldn't have been because it retained the fixed roof grilles - had it gone through works, it would have been dual-braked for sure at that time and received the Serck shutters, so must have been a depot repaint. In reality then the life-span of Bachmann's model of 47148 in blue with fixed grilles was rather short! Since 1741 was renumbered 47148 while still in green it would not have run as 1741 in blue, something which George Dent failed to spot.....😉!

[Southernman46]

9 minutes ago, Halvarras said:

the second at Reading the following day was 31294 (!!)

Did you manage a photo ?

[Mallard60022]

There was a Class 20 in Green around the Wellingborough area in '76 I think it was. It was a bit of a celebrity I seem to remember. Toton or Tinsley? Can't remember.

Phil

[New Haven Neil]

Lime Street, late 76.

 

My photos, poor as they are!

Crewe, summer 76.

 

['CHARD]

51 minutes ago, Halvarras said:

I don't recall the summer of '75 being that hot 'Chard (I got a bit damp at the Reading Festival that August!), it was better than 1974 but 1976 was.......well, legendary, for chasing Westerns too! Is that the one you're thinking of?

 

LOL - no, I was thinking of the often overlooked summer of '75.  I cribbed this detail from a weather page....

 

'There were 8 consecutive days over 30C from 2nd-9th August which was preceded by 4 days from 28th-31st July and then followed by another 4 from 11th-14th August. The highest temperature of the month was 34.2C at Heathrow on the 8th. A weak cold front moved east on the 14th; temperatures reached 30C that day in London.'

 

So not as pronounced as '76 but incredible nonetheless!

[RANGERS]

7 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

There was a Class 20 in Green around the Wellingborough area in '76 I think it was. It was a bit of a celebrity I seem to remember. Toton or Tinsley? Can't remember.

Phil

There were several 20s in the 2014x and 2015x number range that were regulars in the area into the 1980s in green. 20147 had become a bit of a celebrity being the most recognisable as being in green, the remainder were so filthy it was difficult to tell what colour they were.

[hmrspaul]

7 hours ago, 'CHARD said:

 

LOL - no, I was thinking of the often overlooked summer of '75.  I cribbed this detail from a weather page....

 

'There were 8 consecutive days over 30C from 2nd-9th August which was preceded by 4 days from 28th-31st July and then followed by another 4 from 11th-14th August. The highest temperature of the month was 34.2C at Heathrow on the 8th. A weak cold front moved east on the 14th; temperatures reached 30C that day in London.'

 

So not as pronounced as '76 but incredible nonetheless!

Yes, very dry early on that summer. We went away to Iran that May time and I remember coming back at Heathrow and noticing that the grass verges looked more like a desert than Iran (I exaggerate, but only slightly). 

 

1976 was memorable because it followed the unusually hot 1975, so insects in particular had a ball. With 1976 so hot we also had plagues of ladybirds. I remember the memo around all MAFF offices that under no circumstances must any staff member give advice on control of ladybirds - they were the good guys, but the big 7 spots hav a nasty bite! 1976, One of the wettest years on record (until the last few months I suspect) Once it began to rain c 8 September 76 it didn't stop until c March 77.

 

By the way there were green 20s at Toton when we wagonned there in September 1978 https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brclass20/e3680380a

 

Paul

[25kV]

8 hours ago, RANGERS said:

There were several 20s in the 2014x and 2015x number range that were regulars in the area into the 1980s in green. 20147 had become a bit of a celebrity being the most recognisable as being in green, the remainder were so filthy it was difficult to tell what colour they were.

I came across this photo of one of them recently (by Chris Nuthall on Flickr) - I think BR green hauling an APT car has to take the biscuit.  😉  (The BG is clearly acting as a livery translator vehicle...)

 

 

[New Haven Neil]

7 hours ago, hmrspaul said:

Once it began to rain c 8 September 76 it didn't stop until c March 77.

 

 

Yup, I went to the kollege of nollege in Liverpool that September and it rained every day that month, hence the shot of the 47 at Grime Lime Street being so wet!

 

 

This 350 (08 to the young) was often pilot in Lime Street then too, also still in green. Late 76 again.

 

 

[hmrspaul]

8 hours ago, hmrspaul said:

Yes, very dry early on that summer. We went away to Iran that May time and I remember coming back at Heathrow and noticing that the grass verges looked more like a desert than Iran (I exaggerate, but only slightly). 

 

1976 was memorable because it followed the unusually hot 1975, so insects in particular had a ball. With 1976 so hot we also had plagues of ladybirds. I remember the memo around all MAFF offices that under no circumstances must any staff member give advice on control of ladybirds - they were the good guys, but the big 7 spots have a nasty bite! 1976, One of the wettest years on record (until the last few months I suspect) Once it began to rain c 8 September 76 it didn't stop until c March 77.

 

By the way there were green 20s at Toton when we wagoned there in September 1978 https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brclass20/e3680380a

 

Paul

 

[New Haven Neil]

Summer 76 - Brizzle of course,  but lookee here, green 03's (withdrawn?) and the Co-Bo.  Awful photo sorry, cheap and nasty camera, cheap and nasty 300mm, with , yes, cheap and nasty 3x converter.  Guessed (bad) exposure.  But interesting.....

 

[Halvarras]

21 hours ago, Southernman46 said:

Did you manage a photo ?

 

If only I had, and I had the camera with me too! The darn thing suddenly turned up westbound light engine through platform 4 (down main) and went straight through, giving me no time to get the camera out and ready! One of the reasons I prefer semaphore signals, you get advance warning (he says, just 3 days before the semaphores at his local station are due to be felled......☹️)

 

21 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

There was a Class 20 in Green around the Wellingborough area in '76 I think it was. It was a bit of a celebrity I seem to remember. Toton or Tinsley? Can't remember.

Phil

 

I took a couple of photos of green 20075 at Westhouses depot on 13th April 1979, but the very last green one, and last mainline diesel - 20141 - lasted just over a year longer (I believe the very last green loco of all was a Class 08 - 08934?) I have posted the pics of 20075 on here before, in the appropriate thread, but they may have been 'lost'. Unfortunately I can't get at them at the moment as our now rather old laptop has fallen foul of the 'File system error (-2147219196)' update fiasco, which prevents access to images, amongst other apps, on processors of a certain age. Microsoft broke it, so Microsoft had better fix it........

 

21 hours ago, 'CHARD said:

 

LOL - no, I was thinking of the often overlooked summer of '75.  I cribbed this detail from a weather page....

 

'There were 8 consecutive days over 30C from 2nd-9th August which was preceded by 4 days from 28th-31st July and then followed by another 4 from 11th-14th August. The highest temperature of the month was 34.2C at Heathrow on the 8th. A weak cold front moved east on the 14th; temperatures reached 30C that day in London.'

 

So not as pronounced as '76 but incredible nonetheless!

 

On reflection I do believe you are correct - time dims the memory! It was certainly fine weather in late May if my photos are any guide, but I think my recollections of August were coloured by that Reading Festival experience (I only went the once), which maybe proved that it wasn't only Glastonbury which suffered 'weather awareness'......

 

13 hours ago, hmrspaul said:

1976, One of the wettest years on record (until the last few months I suspect) Once it began to rain c 8 September 76 it didn't stop until c March 77.

 

And that's why I wasn't worried about the 13-month drought order here in Cornwall, which expired on 25th September - I knew we were 'in for it' because this is how it always plays out, and now we have water running out of everywhere. It does make me wonder whether a proposed £125 million seawater desalination plant is really required to be built "in Par" (I hope they mean the largely disused two-thirds of Par Docks), but that's enough about that subject.....

 

6 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

Yup, I went to the kollege of nollege in Liverpool that September and it rained every day that month, hence the shot of the 47 at Grime Lime Street being so wet!

 

 

This 350 (08 to the young) was often pilot in Lime Street then too, also still in green. Late 76 again.

 

 

 

That was a problem with TOPS: "An unidentified Class 47 leaves Lime Street" - whereas before it would have been easily identified from this angle! Note that 08923 was one of the relatively uncommon 08s which survived dual-braking still in green livery - a purpose for that green '08' which Hornby issued with the air compressor box 'by accident' - was it D3963 or D3986?

 

5 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

Summer 76 - Brizzle of course,  but lookee here, green 03's (withdrawn?) and the Co-Bo.  Awful photo sorry, cheap and nasty camera, cheap and nasty 300mm, with , yes, cheap and nasty 3x converter.  Guessed (bad) exposure.  But interesting.....

 

 

Yep, they were 03128 and 03134, both withdrawn ex-Laira (that depot never had a blue one). 03134 was towed from Laira to Bristol on 22nd May by 50050, I spotted them parked at Taunton from a Paddington - Paignton special hauled by 31416+31419 that day. I photographed these two 03s from ground level within the depot on 31st July 1976 (how on earth did we get away with it?!) - these represented two-thirds of the total number of green TOPS Class 03s, and I'd just photographed the other third, 03382, moving its 13-Ton open match wagon around in front of the depot. The Co-Bo needs no introduction! Again I've posted these pics on RMweb before but.........see above!

[Mol_PMB]

7 hours ago, 25kV said:

I came across this photo of one of them recently (by Chris Nuthall on Flickr) - I think BR green hauling an APT car has to take the biscuit.  😉  (The BG is clearly acting as a livery translator vehicle...)

 

 

Fascinating! Not many APT intermediate trailers had a full complement of bogies to themselves - was this a test car of some sort?

[New Haven Neil]

36 minutes ago, Halvarras said:

"An unidentified Class 47 leaves Lime Street" -

 

Ah yes, I should have said it was 358 in Liverpool and Crewe!

[Halvarras]

The last green survivors appear to have been high-numbered LMR 47/3s, plus the WR's 47256 which outlived them all (even allowing for its short-lived and final single-tone green repaint!) It had succeeded in gaining 'domino' headcode panels for its last days in two-tone green and I think one or two of the others did too.....? (A very few green Class 20s also achieved this, but such a combination was exceedingly rare, single figures only across both classes.)

[25kV]

5 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

Fascinating! Not many APT intermediate trailers had a full complement of bogies to themselves - was this a test car of some sort?

It's a Trailer Brake First on accommodation bogies (basically plate wagon bogies).  Consequently it's sitting higher than it normally would!  The nearest end would become an articulated end, while the furthest had a conventional bogie when in service.  Articulated APT vehicles were often mounted on these accommodation bogies for moving around the sites at Derby and Shields, etc.

[slilley]

The latter half of the summer in 1975 was dry.

 

This is the England v Australia test match played at the end of August. See how parched the outfiled is.

 

 

[Halvarras]

1 hour ago, slilley said:

The latter half of the summer in 1975 was dry.

 

This is the England v Australia test match played at the end of August. See how parched the outfiled is.

 

 

 

Maybe so, but I still got damp at the Reading Festival around then. Music festivals must just attract their own weather systems (as many Glastonbury-goers will testify!)

[AY Mod]

21 minutes ago, Halvarras said:

 

Maybe so, but I still got damp at the Reading Festival around then. Music festivals must just attract their own weather systems (as many Glastonbury-goers will testify!)

 

It was usually around August Bank Holiday which, also, has it's own weather system; as anyone who went to the first Birmingham Superprix would know.

[Halvarras]

15 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

It was usually around August Bank Holiday which, also, has it's own weather system; as anyone who went to the first Birmingham Superprix would know.

 

Gosh yes, I remember that - 1986? I felt so sorry for the organisers who must have spent so much time and money setting it up. IIRC it was blamed on the tail end lashing from a hurricane or typhoon which had crossed the Atlantic, something which we'd rarely if ever heard of at the time, but have regularly since. On August Bank Holiday Monday 2012 I found myself with a free afternoon so decided to get the airbrush out and spray some models - set it all up and just as I was about to press the button the heavens opened........I was spraying out of a window so I backed into the room a little and pressed on while turning the air nearly as blue as the Bachmann Peak and pair of Class 25s I was working on. The moisture in the air did cause a slight issue, I largely got away with it but I was more than a little hacked off at the additional stress imposed!

 

Not a Bank Holiday but I still vividly recall what happened to the 2007 Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford - on the day before, Friday 20th July, it rained solidly all day - I still remember sitting in my car reading Adrian Curtis's 'In Praise of Warships' booklet and eating my lunch while the rain hammered on the roof! I lived and worked in the area for 34 years and had never seen so much water before or since. Having presumably got most of the aircraft in, doubtless at vast expense, the Fairford weekend had to be cancelled due to the waterlogged airfield and main runway, and it has never been the same since. 

 

Green 47152 to extreme weather conditions is quite a thread drift 😃 - over and out!

[AY Mod]

25 minutes ago, Halvarras said:

Gosh yes, I remember that - 1986? I felt so sorry for the organisers who must have spent so much time and money setting it up. IIRC it was blamed on the tail end lashing from a hurricane or typhoon which had crossed the Atlantic, something which we'd rarely if ever heard of at the time, but have regularly since.

 

I was in the grandstand at Highgate that we got turfed out of as it was starting to sink just after the F3000 started.

 

Weekend diversion over.

[russ p]

2 hours ago, AY Mod said:

 

I was in the grandstand at Highgate that we got turfed out of as it was starting to sink just after the F3000 started.

 

Weekend diversion over.

 

Was that the same event which had the metro super challenge with the 6R4s?

Probably the best sounding motorsport event ever all those V6s within a built up area

 

Anyway getting back on track, did any green loco of any class get the domino stickers in the headcode boxes? 

[AY Mod]

5 minutes ago, russ p said:

Was that the same event which had the metro super challenge with the 6R4s?

 

That was a couple of years later; sadly I couldn't make that year. Best sounding forest car, full stop.