Cambridge University Railway Club

Now that Ed Burkhardt is in charge of almost the entire freight operations on Railtrack, it will be interesting to see which classes of locomotives wiped off the face of the track. Already the Brush 47's looked doomed, and it remains to be seen if the Brush 31's are similarly fated. These machines used to be seen regularly in Cambridge as they were used to power the RES trains. 47's are used exclusively these days. In a year or so's time the 47's will be replaced with brand new class 61 and 66's made by General Motors in Ontario and Illinois.

On the freight side of things, 31's are often seen on nuclear flask trains, such as this. Once the DRS class 20/3's have been given the safety case for working over the whole of Railtrack, sights like this will become a thing of the past. 31554 is at Fambridge on the 24th August 1995 with the Thursdays-only working up to Southminster. This working necessitates the 'cancellation' of a passenger service top allow it to run up the singled branch line and back.

An unidentified pair of 31/4's head a service from Preston to Liverpool, seen here at Wigan North Western. These services are no longer loco-hauled, only service to the North-Wales coast and Holyhead remain as such, although they are now serviced by 37/4's.