By Geoff Courtney
A fascinating photograph of a brand-new Class 31 diesel more than 550 miles from home, wheel-to-wheel with a still operational 73-year-old steam loco, has been unearthed by former Stratford driver Dave Brennand, whose new book on London’s East End steam was featured in the June issue of Heritage Railway.
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The photograph shows D5511 on Scotland’s Inverness shed (60A) in the summer of 1958, posing beside – and overshadowing – the diminutive No. 56011, an 0-4-0ST built by the Caledonian Railway at St Rollox works in Glasgow in 1885 to the design of Dugald Drummond.
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Dave, who during a 40-year railway career that included two decades at Stratford driving many Class 31s, has a dual fascination with the photograph – the stark contrast of the Victorian railway era illustrated by the ‘Pug’ compared with the modern era epitomised by D5511, and the reason for the Stratford-based diesel being at faraway Inverness.
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The answer to the conundrum of the diesel’s presence on 60A is one of the lesser-known, and even lesser photographed, episodes of the late-1950s, as BR got to grips with the new diesel generation as it adapted to life after steam.
Read more in Issue 232 of HR – on sale now!
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