'Western Lord' (right) ticking over by the turntable, alongside 1041 'Western Prince'
There were five other class 52's in active use at Old Oak Common that Saturday morning including 1056 'Western Sultan' in the background.
Warships and Hymeks had already been withdrawn by then and the 33 Westerns left only had a short time left in front line service before class 50's arrived and HST sets were introduced.
Although the use of train identification codes had been discontinued just before this photo was taken, the dreaded 0000 had not yet appeared. At least the Westerns displayed their loco numbers in their final months of activity. 1B25 was I believe the 12:30 Paddington to Penzance.
One of my favourite pictures, but apologies for the poor quality. One of only two films I don't have the negatives for, and I had the prints produced on that damn matt paper that produces millions of spots when scanned so this image has needed several hours in the 'digital darkroom' to get rid of most of them.
Another editing session (21st April 2013), and a re-launch!
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