SATURDAY 14th JUNE 1980

Another overnight jaunt from home in Torquay chasing haulage commenced on Friday evening with a drive to Newton Abbot for the 1830 Plymouth-Cardiff to Bristol which unusually appears behind former East-Coast ‘generator’ Class 47 47403.

It was always difficult to decide whether to head for Sheffield or North Wales as I rated both 37s & 40s very highly, but in this case I’d opted for the latter.

47122 and 45040 were lined up at Bristol on 1S23 2130 Bristol-Edinburgh and 1S19 2142 to Glasgow respectively and I decided to have a dose of each by bailing off 1S23 at Cheltenham.

A required 81001 has already backed onto 1S23 at New St & dud 85030 onto 1S19 so the former was taken to Stafford to cover the ‘Splitter’ 2315 Euston- Manchester / Liverpool with 86233 & 86015 the latter landing me at Crewe around 01:30.

At Crewe I noted 47069 headed to Cardiff on the 0147 before getting m`y head down on 1D02 the 0223 Crewe-Holyhead behind 47444 which was taken to Holyhead and back to Llandudno Jn on 1A23 0627 Holyhead-Euston.

DMU into Llandudno town was the regular move at this point ready to view the trains lined up for departure. Hmm catastrophic is the word. The 0900 to York is 40108, 0916 to Euston is 47555 (I say no more!), the 0935 to Euston 47053 and 0942 to Manchester 25300, all completely dud. Oh dear I wonder what’s out of Sheffield.

Feeling deflated, I adjourn to the breakfast pally to lift my spirits.

Back to the station and it has to be the 40 so 40108 is taken to Abergele to view the 0747 Manchester-Bangor which is 40145, nice loco but flagged for 25300 on 1J66 forward to Rhyl with the Manchester train where the incoming Stoke can be viewed but that’s 47481. Oh dear! Coming up behind me is the 0925 Holyhead-Crewe and Thornaby based 40146 rolls in – where’s that come from, I hadn’t seen it Holyhead? A massive requirement at last but could only be taken to Prestatyn because of the danger of passing other huge locos on the run to Chester.

At Prestatyn 25320 is the first arrival with 1D30 Derby-Llandudno, a required Rat, thank you very much. This is taken to Rhyl where 40006 is waved by on the 0752 from Leeds, likewise 47365 on the 0924 from Birmingham, 47547 on the 1020 Man Vic-Llandudno (a huge disappointment) and 40145 heading back from Bangor. Annoyingly the mega 40144 pootles through with a ballast working before another required 40 – 40047 approaches with the 0855 from York. This is taken to Llandudno Jn where I make prescribed visit to the buffet for their famous Eccles cakes.

A poor show so far all considering but after viewing a series of ETH 47s and 25320 rattling back to Derby my spirits are lifted as 40070 arrives heading for Crewe with 1A56 1300 Holyhead-Euston. So that’s 3 new 40s, a 25 and an 81 in the bag at that point.

I pass but observe 40069 at Abergele on the 0908 from Scarborough (not required) and likewise at Rhyl 40117 dragging 40029 on the 1105 Manchester Holyhead. Just to rub it in 40098 which I did (and still do) require is stabled at Rhyl. At Prestatyn I cross the 1035 Euston-Llandudno but 40116 suggests I can continue towards Crewe for the mileage with my new loco and at Chester 40146 is heading back into North Wales with the 1418 from Crewe so before I know it I’m back at Crewe.

At this point of the proceedings I’m still mostly genless, which all these years later proved later to be a bit of a disaster, as I was completely unaware that two class 40s I never managed for haulage had worked out of Manchester that day – 40096 on the out and back Manchester Piccadilly to Skegness & 40178 on the 0840 to Scarborough & 1300 return.Oh well that’s the way it goes. 

Arriving back at New St I notices required 82008 is standing with the 1430 Swansea-Manchester so a backtrack to Wolverhampton is made before 86321 whisks me back to New St in time for the 1638 Leeds-Bristol behind 45042. At Bristol, it has sadly become almost impossible to travel loco hauled to the west country late evening so an all stations DMU is taken to Taunton for an HST on the 2025 Paddington-Plymouth which deposits me back at Newton Abbot very late and incredibly tired.

Just as a final insult I see the required 25152 standing in the platform at Newton Abbot with the ecs off a previous working!

Overall I rated that as a fairly poor days bashing being bowled out by lots of ETH 47s and common 40s, but looking through my records I can’t see 40070 or 40146 ever being offered up to me again with both of them being withdrawn in the first 6 months of 1981, so maybe it wasn’t too bad after all.