The situation was dire in June '78. I had approximately thirty days left in the United Kingdom and my world, as far as British Rail was concerned, was rapidly coming to an end. I was to be shipped off to some colonial swampland called South Carolina, and I knew that rail fanning would never be same again. There were so many things that I wanted to do before I left the UK.
In late June a friend and I purchased a Midland Railtourer pass, good for one week starting on 26 June 1978. The week was to be spent visiting all those hard to find locomotive depots in the industrial heart of England. The following notes and photos are from 30 June and 1 July 1978.
We spent the afternoon of the 30th at Burton-on-Trent. I badly wanted to see and photograph the brand new Romanian Class 56s. I managed to get one shot; of course I was on the wrong end of the station at the time. A class 46 and Class 47 also turned up but the afternoon was dull with just a few trains.
On the 1st I photographed and then caught the 9:19 from Bicester to Banbury. From Banbury we headed north on our Midland pass. My goal for the day was to photograph class 56s and to do it we were going to take the bus from Chesterfield to Shirebrook and then on to Barrow Hill. At Shirebrook we were delighted to discover ten class 56s, nine of which were sitting quietly together in a row. I managed two photographs of the class 56 line up- 56-015, 56-027, 56-003, 56-018, 56-002, 56-023, 56-013, 56-005 and 56-030. We then caught the bus for Barrow Hill where I snapped a shot of 56-009, 56-025, and 56-022. At Barrow Hill we meet two enterprising Englishmen who were basically doing the same thing that we were with the exception that they had an automobile. They were headed to Toton and offered to let us tag along. At Toton we gained access to the shed with a contrived story about two American pen pals who traveled all the way to Nottinghamshire just to see Toton. Unfortunately I placed getting locomotive numbers above photographs so I came away with 75 locomotives, but no pictures! The final shot is of a pair of 25s at Derby station.
