First Great Western’s class 57 No 57602 on the blocks at London Paddington having bought in the empty stock for the “Night Riviera” to Penzance. FGW has a small fleet of these locomotives specifically to work their one remaining overnight service. They are rebuilds of 1960s class 47s, with their worn-out Sulzer engines replaced by GM ones. They lack the classic throaty Sulzer roar, but the distinctive lines of the locomotive remain, a classic of 1960s industrial design.
I took this photo hand-held at a ridiculously low shutter speed, taking advantage of the Sony Alpha’s in-body image stabilisation. Since I was on my way home from a gig I didn’t have a tripod with me.
Golly, I should have known the nature of those locos. I just thought those class 47s were getting rather old.
The bulk of them have long been scrapped, bit are still a few class 47s on the network. West Coast Railways, one of the charter operators have some, as do the freight operator DRS.