D5842 was originally delivered in May 1962 as part of the final phase of type 2 diesels in the Sheffield area scheme. Its first home in East Anglia was Ipswich in 1967 followed in 1968 by 3.5 years at March. It then went to the Western Region and during that period was fitted with electric train heating equipment and shortly after was renumbered 31416.
It was October 1982 when it returned to the Eastern Region, again at March, with other WR examples to provide ETH power for the Norwich / Cambridge – Birmingham and Peterborough – Ipswich / Harwich services. When March depot closed it went to Bescot, still covering the same work until the services went over to Sprinter operation in May 1988. It remained in traffic until 1995.
Here 31416 is seen at Peterborough, looking rather beastly I would say, at the head of the 12.58 service to Harwich on 14th December 1983 which consisted of just four coaches. Mind you this would be considered a luxury nowadays !
31416 had last received a classified overhaul in January 1977, but her clean appearance here is down to the Old Oak Common apprentices who kindly gave 416 a new coat of paint just a couple of weeks before she left the Western Region for good. They did keep the eggshell blue stripe, however the blue star coupling code symbols were omitted as can be seen here.
Note the widely spaced ‘eyes’ in the headcode panel which were applied at Doncaster to a small batch of 15 or so class 31 locomotives between September 1976 and February 1977. 31416 was the penultimate class 31 to retain the redundant gangway doors and she might well have been the last one had it not been for a catastrophic failure on January 12th 1984 while working 3B26 Colchester – Peterborough Nene parcels. It was assisted by 31166 and removed at March where 31129 took over. The loco was then dumped at March until it was called up to become the first ‘classic series’ candidate in the Heavy General Overhaul programme for class 31. It left for Doncaster on March 22nd 1984.
What happened next ? Well see the next photograph ………
Posted by gerardtcc on 2017-04-28 21:09:31
Tagged: , 31416 , Class 31 , Peterborough , Harwich , 1962 , 1983
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