Class 44 but what location?

[Czesziafan]

Picked this up in a junk shop. Tinplate photo badge of a class 44 at a station, interestingly displaying express passenger head discs. Does anyone know the location albeit there is only part of the station structure visible? I wouldn't have thought that the 44's had any regular passenger turns by this time (late 70's) so perhaps it was deputising for a failure when this shot was taken.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Looks ex-works so might have been about to do a test run after release for which sometimes passenger stock was used, or possibly a railtour, The number is a bit fuzzy, but I feel it is 44 008 which did have a works visit at a surprisingly late stage - Derby in late spring or early summer 1980 if I remember rightly. I think it was a power unit change.

I'm not sure the picture is even in a platform? It looks more like a depot to me?

 

[Czesziafan]

Looks ex-works so might have been about to do a test run after release for which sometimes passenger stock was used, or possibly a railtour, The number is a bit fuzzy, but I feel it is 44 008 which did have a works visit at a surprisingly late stage - Derby in late spring or early summer 1980 if I remember rightly. I think it was a power unit change.

I'm not sure the picture is even in a platform? It looks more like a depot to me?

Hi please see my edit - there is no platform but its the passenger headcode that intrigues me

 

[Czesziafan]

Looks ex-works so might have been about to do a test run after release for which sometimes passenger stock was used, or possibly a railtour, The number is a bit fuzzy, but I feel it is 44 008 which did have a works visit at a surprisingly late stage - Derby in late spring or early summer 1980 if I remember rightly. I think it was a power unit change.

I'm not sure the picture is even in a platform? It looks more like a depot to me?

I think you are right. Under high magnification the number on the original looks like 44008 but I couldn't be sure.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Now here's the rub... in summer 1980 I spent 10 days with the school Scout troop at the Scout camp site at Blackwell Court, right next to the top of the Lickey Incline and on the east side of the line; partly in a cutting but also partly across a wide open field. At one point I took a photo of a train heading up the incline with a load of Mk1s behind it, but didn't have a clue which one it was.

A few minutes later someone else in the troop came running up to me and gave me the number... 44 008!

Now, this was someone who didn't have the slightest interest in trains - I was the only enthusiast in the troop. Could that person have been winding me up? It's possible, but surely highly unlikely to provide me with that particular number if that was the case?

A loaded test run after a power unit change, especially knowing the locomotive was likely to be in demand for railtours, would make sense and thinking about it, Derby to Gloucester via the Lickey would be a perfectly obvious route wouldn't it, with the triangle at Gloucester to assist with running round and the hard run back up the incline on the way back?

I do still have the photo and I tweeted it last year but I can't add it here directly right now because I still have the browser issue on my main computer - however, the tweet is searchable on Google so I can at least provide a link to it. At the time I showed the photo to another enthusiast a few years above me at school, who lived in Beeston near Nottingham and was very familiar with all Peaks, and he said it did look a bit like a 44 - but to be fair so did every single Peak... and the photo unfortunately isn't that clear; it was done on a Kodak A1 pocket camera using the very small 110 format negatives.

Can't help wondering if the picture on the badge was around that time, though...

https://twitter.com/Peter_Mugridge/status/939576793383821312

 

[Ash Bridge]

It actually looks like Toton depot to me, I'd say I'm 99% certain about this as I visited the place several times during the 1970s when the 44s were all based there. If I get the chance later I'll see if I can locate my slides from those visits although I'm absolutely positive that is the location.

 

[d9009alycidon]

Thought for a moment it could have been Glasgow Works, it was on display there in June 1981 while on its way to the Strathspey railway, but a check of photographs of it on display there shows that it had acquired a white stripe on the lower bodyside prior to that event.

 

[Cowley]

It actually looks like Toton depot to me, I'd say I'm 99% certain about this as I visited the place several times during the 1970s when the 44s were all based there. If I get the chance later I'll see if I can locate my slides from those visits although I'm absolutely positive that is the location.

I thought Toton straight away too.

 

[Ash Bridge]

I thought Toton straight away too.

Well I'm positive now, no chance of getting to my slides anytime soon but typing in Toton depot on google comes up with at least a couple of confirming shots. The clues are the chimney that appears to sprout out of the cab roof and the steel girders just visible to the left of the secondmans windscreen for me.

 

[theblackwatch]

Those badges were produced in the late 1970s I think - I had a couple of them (a Class 55, 55021, and a Class 31/0 - probably still got them somewhere!).

 

[Richard Bishop]

Now here's the rub... in summer 1980 I spent 10 days with the school Scout troop at the Scout camp site at Blackwell Court, right next to the top of the Lickey Incline and on the east side of the line; partly in a cutting but also partly across a wide open field. At one point I took a photo of a train heading up the incline with a load of Mk1s behind it, but didn't have a clue which one it was.

A few minutes later someone else in the troop came running up to me and gave me the number... 44 008!

Now, this was someone who didn't have the slightest interest in trains - I was the only enthusiast in the troop. Could that person have been winding me up? It's possible, but surely highly unlikely to provide me with that particular number if that was the case?

A loaded test run after a power unit change, especially knowing the locomotive was likely to be in demand for railtours, would make sense and thinking about it, Derby to Gloucester via the Lickey would be a perfectly obvious route wouldn't it, with the triangle at Gloucester to assist with running round and the hard run back up the incline on the way back?

I do still have the photo and I tweeted it last year but I can't add it here directly right now because I still have the browser issue on my main computer - however, the tweet is searchable on Google so I can at least provide a link to it. At the time I showed the photo to another enthusiast a few years above me at school, who lived in Beeston near Nottingham and was very familiar with all Peaks, and he said it did look a bit like a 44 - but to be fair so did every single Peak... and the photo unfortunately isn't that clear; it was done on a Kodak A1 pocket camera using the very small 110 format negatives.

Can't help wondering if the picture on the badge was around that time, though...

https://twitter.com/Peter_Mugridge/status/939576793383821312

From information on derbysulzers website 44008 did a test run on 10th July 1980 on the 1207 Derby St Pancras as far as Leicester, by this this time it had reaquired it’s white stripe on the lower body side it also appears to have had its roof painted white on its works visit. Can’t see a stripe or white roof on loco in your picture , so would have thought it more likely the loco ID was 45008 or 46008.

Richard

 

[Cowley]

There’s an interesting article in Traction magazine about a visit to Toton in October 1979, and shows 44004 (minus nameplates) turning up on a freight train with the passenger headcodes displayed.
But also 44007 arriving on a freight displaying headcodes (lower drivers side full, secondmans half), there’s also a shot of 44008 with the full depot pet treatment - white tyres, roof and bodyside stripes and double discs displayed which it says it received earlier in 1979.
Looking at the photo on the badge it looks less like a 4 at the end of the numbers now to me.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

From information on derbysulzers website 44008 did a test run on 10th July 1980 on the 1207 Derby St Pancras as far as Leicester, by this this time it had reaquired it’s white stripe on the lower body side it also appears to have had its roof painted white on its works visit. Can’t see a stripe or white roof on loco in your picture , so would have thought it more likely the loco ID was 45008 or 46008.

Thank you; that's very interesting - and useful knowledge.

 

[Robin Edwards]

Not sure about number 8 but I know 2,4 and 7 worked railtours at the end of their working life