From the guard's van

One sunny day in 1988 I found time to go to Colwich to photograph the WCML before the days of Pendolinos or six foot high fences... and it probably never crossed the driver's mind that I might jump in front of his train. This is 87 026 in Inter-City livery. 20 010 in Railfreight grey livery heads a MGR train. Class 101 on a local train. 87 028 in ex works Inter City livery. 85 037 leads a postal train.

A loaded stone train approaches Peak Forest from Tunstead Quarry. A class 47 stands in the sidings with a short freight. The train passes Peak Forest South signal box with a train of mid 1930s ICI hoppers bound for the ICI works at Northwich in Cheshire. Class 37 at the stabling point. The PEAKSTONE shunter preparing a train in the quarry.

A visit to Peak Forest on the old Midland main line to Manchester in 1988. This is a general view of Peak Quarry with a class 37 about to drag a train out of the sidings. The train locos would back onto the other end of the train to take it out to the North. The train heads out of the quarry into the headshunt. The loaded train goes further out of the quarry while the two class 37s, the train engines, wait to cross over to pick the train up. Oops....! The train engines wait for the train to clear the crossover before they back down onto it.

We travel to the East Coast Main Line for this set of images taken in 1988. Two class 31s head a tank train waiting to go south from the down sidings at the back of the station.  More class 56s with southbound coal empties.  I think this is one of the better looking Pacer designs (set against little competition it must be said) and the addition of the third car made it a useful unit which is still in use today. What the ride is like is another matter.  More coal empties on the main line. A Class 31 takes a short rake of cement tanks on the up main line through the station.

Last week I started scanning my old negatives. These images are the first and they date back to 1988. We spent a few hours away from a caravan holiday to watch the coal trains at Worksop station (along with a few local passenger trains). Most of these trains were in the hands of class 56s at that time. Here one is reversing its train into the sidings on the left. The driver is waiting for the road over the level crossing here. The service from Sheffield to Retford was in the hands of these DMUs. Class 20s in pairs were also to be seen on the coal trains.