A day working trackside finds me at Bingham on the Nottingham – Grantham line in connection with converting the level crossing from gates to manually controlled barriers. In between working I manage to get this photograph of Holbeck allocated 31111 working I suspect 4M22, the afternoon Peterborough – Crewe parcels to at least Nottingham, where it was probably replaced by a class 25, 11th August 1977.
Locomotive History
31111 was built at the Brush Falcon works, Loughborough and entered traffic in May 1959 as D5529. It is one of the early class 31/1 locomotives that externally had much in common with the original class 31/0s as they were fitted with discs and lacked the roof mounted headcode box due to production delays with the new style cabs. Its first allocation was March MPD and this was followed by spells at Norwich (1959), March (1961), Gateshead (1971), Stratford (1971), March (1972) and Holbeck (1974). It was an early casualty and became the eleventh class 31/1 to be withdrawn when it was condemned in June 1983 after a working life of twenty four years. It was broken up at Swindon works in July 1986.
Praktica LTL, Kodachrome 64
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