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One of the last bastions of loco haulage
remains the continued use of EWS class 37/4's on the
Cardiff to Rhymney commuter trains and summertime only Cardiff to Fishguard
Harbour diagrams. With 2004 scheduled to be the final
year of operation for these services, South Wales could be without the
sights and sounds of this
enigmatic class for the first time in over nearly 40
years.
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The first class 37's to be refurbished during
1985/6 were 31 locomotives to be fitted with electric train
heating. The ETH locos were required to eliminate stream
heating on passenger services in Scotland.
37259-282/284-308 were the locomotives selected to be
refurbished into 37401-3 and initially allocated to Scotland
then to South Wales to cover Cardiff to Crewe diagrams. |
37418 & 37419
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As part of the 1955 BR Modernisation
Plan, Class 37 locomotives were ordered by BR and built
at the Vulcan Foundry, Newton-Le-Willows and Robert
Stephenson & Hawthorn, Darlington. All locomotives had
steam heating, four character head code boxes, nose end
communication doors and vacuum brakes. These locomotives
were delivered in BR Green livery without yellow warning
panels, but half-yellow panels appeared later due to
safety regulations. The last locomotive to be built
became 37308 in the TOPS numbering scheme, but was later
renumbered to avoid confusion with the refurbished Class
37/3 locos.
The first batch of locomotives were sent to East Anglia.
Between 1968 and 1976 about two thirds of the fleet were
modified with the addition of air brakes. Until the
programme of dual braking was complete, BR had to be
careful about which locomotives to operate on air brake
only trains.
In 1985, a major refurbishment programme for the Class
37 locomotives started, and 135 locos were modified,
leaving 173 un-refurbished locos. Features of the
refurbishment was the sealing off of the nose end
communication doors and plating over of the four
character head code boxes. A major refurbishment for the
whole fleet was considered to expensive, so some of the
locomotives underwent a standard intermediate overhaul,
and were fitted with re-geared CP7 bogies recovered from
the Deltics.
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37421 passing Margam |
37422 at Pontllotyn
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