Railway Herald
Class 47/4 No. 47853 'Rail Express' is pictured heading 1M56, 0848 Penzance to Manchester Piccadilly VXC service at Besford, Worcestershire on Saturday 17 August 2002. The locomotive, also displaying its original D1733 number, was one of those selected for 'celebrity' status during the final year of locomotive-haulage on Virgin's Cross Country services. On this day, which coincided with the final locomotive hauled Cross Country services on the following Monday, the Class 47 was scheduled to work as far as Birmingham New Street where it was to be replaced by an electric locomotive to take the train forward for the final leg of the journey to Manchester. It is worth noting that following release to traffic from Brush Falcon Works in Loughborough in June 1964, it became the first locomotive to appear in an experimental blue livery, making its first appearance along with a repainted set of Mark 1 coaching stock at the 'Expo' exhibition in the September of that year. Less than two years later, in June 1966, the BR board issued a directive stating that all locomotives and coaching stock would be repainted into the new 'corporate' livery. This photograph depicts as near possible, the livery the locomotive carried at the time it appeared at the 'EXPO 64' event.
John Tuffs
