Passenger Archive

This DVD takes a nostalgic look at the loco-hauled passenger scene in the 1980s. It was a decade that produced plenty of traction variety, from the use of Class 20s on summer-dated holiday trains to the unique Class 89 on the East Coast Main Line. The programme is divided into eight geographical areas that cover most of the country - the West Country, Southern England, London, East Anglia, Lincolnshire, Central England, Wales & Borders, Northern England and Scotland. A wealth of diagrammed passenger work was supplemented by diesel-hauled ‘drags’, DMU substitutions, summer holiday services and freight locos deputising for the booked passenger loco. It was also a decade which marked the start of sectorisation. What were once everyday scenes have long since passed into history. And it’s not only the traction that provides the nostalgia here - so does the surrounding railway infrastructure, most of which has been swept away by modernisation.

Locos & workings include...46025 leaving Exeter on a Bradford Exchange-Paignton, 33025 at Llandudno Junction returning from Holyhead, 50011 leaving Paignton, 50047 setting off from Newquay, 73104 & 73129 propelling a Waterloo-Weymouth service at Eastleigh, 89001 departing from King’s Cross, 37116 leaving King’s Lynn for Liverpool Street, 56062 on a King’s Lynn-Cambridge service train, 37230 & 58006 on Birmingham-Nuneaton ‘drags’, 86322 on the Stirling-Euston Motorail, 85038 on a Poole-Glasgow, 45101 & 45102 double-heading the Sunday Derby-St Pancras, 40122 on the Llandudno-Stoke, 25323 & 37429 leaving Shrewsbury on the Birmingham-Aberystwyth, 20218 & 20099 setting off from Blackpool North with a Potteries holiday additional, retro-liveried E3195 (86426) leaving Liverpool Lime Street for Euston, 25321 ‘dragging’ 86213 out of Wigan, 40118 arriving at Leeds from Carlisle, 47549 at Betws-y-Coed with the Ffestiniog-Llandudno, Railfreight’s 31161 working a Lime Street-Cleethorpes, 91003 ‘blunt end’ leading on ?Mark 2 stock, 37112 leaving Glasgow Queen Street for Oban, 37081 arriving at Mallaig, 26021 arriving at Edinburgh Waverley from Dundee, 27052 on a Edinburgh-Dundee, various Scottish ‘push-pull’ 47/7 workings...and summer Saturday trains to Skegness featuring 20042 & 20034, 31110, 40079, 45037 and 47417.
     
David Maxey provides the commentary for this fascinating trip down memory lane, which features BR loco classes 20, 25, 26, 27, 31, 33, 37, 40, 45, 46, 47, 50, 56, 58, 73, 85, 86, 87, 89 and 91. For good measure, there’s the occasional DMU in there as well.