Class 57

• 57001 heads north through Hamstead with an unidentified liner. This shot was taken at 13:19 on Saturday 19th February 2005.
• 57003 heads east through Washwood Heath with 4L93 Lawley St - Felixstowe. This was taken at 10:15 on Friday 16th March 2007. At the north end of Washwood Heath yard it crossed 57004 heading along the reversible goods line with 4M86 Felixstowe - Lawley St. The regular use of Class 57s by Freightliner was coming to a close when this picture was taken. By the summer the remaining ones were only being used as pilot locos, or on infrequent mainline outings. This continued into the autumn of 2007, by which time some of Freightliner's cast-offs had been re-instated to traffic with DRS.
• 4L93 Lawley St - Felixstowe had 57003 again on Wednesday 21st March 2007. This picture was taken at 11:02 and shows the train a short distance to the east of Whitacre Jct, a couple of hundred yards further east than the previous shot of 57006. 4L93 is normally a very good timekeeper, but on this occasion it was running about 30 minutes late. A power failure at Rugby meant that it had been held at Water Orton.
• 57005 passes Dosthill, between Kingsbury and Tamworth, with a 6Z95 Cardiff - Stockton empty scrap train. This picture was taken at 16:51 on Saturday 23rd May 2009.
• 57006 accelerates away from Whitacre Jct with a fully-laden 4L93 Lawley St - Felixstowe freightliner. This shot was taken at 10:27 on Friday 2nd March 2007, from the then rather muddy footpath which parallels the line east of the junction. In March it's difficult to find a spot where no shadows fall on the loco - this shot is better in April or May when the sun is higher and the shadows less prominent.
• Now acquired by Advenza Rail, 57006 takes the 6Z72 Stockton - Cardiff scrap through Spetchley at 17:15 on Tuesday 13th May 2008.
• 57007 and 57003 pass Summerfield at 18:23 on Thursday 3rd June 2011. The train is 6M67 Bridgwater - Crewe, running a bit later than I expected after a long recess at Worcester.
• 57011 has 57004 dead-inside on 4O29 Trafford Park - Southampton, seen here passing Bescot station at 14.52 on Saturday 2nd October 2004. This train had gone AWOL, having been reported past Stafford about 1½ hours earlier. The normal running time from Stafford to Bescot is about 30 mins, so it had obviously been looped en-route.
• Wolverhampton - Euston trains were diverted via Nuneaton on Sunday 8th June 2008, and they also ran via Bescot rather than the Stour Valley. As last year the loco-hauled set made an appearance on 1G09, the 11:56 Euston - Wolverhampton, with 90020 provided as the train engine. Last year it usually returned south on 1B22, the 16:12 from Wolverhampton, but this was a Pendo. Instead the Mk3s formed 1B23 17:12 Wolverhampton - Euston, with 57302 providing the power as far as Nuneaton. It's seen here passing Saltley Viaduct at 17:52.
• 57305 passes Washwood Heath Sidings No 1 box with a Wolverhampton - Nuneaton Pendo drag on Saturday 1st July 2006. This shot was taken at 10:35 and I believe the train is the late running 1B21 09:18 Wolverhampton - Euston (about 45 down). The brown and white building in the background is the Kappa SSK factory, which re-cycles paper into industrial packaging. Behind that are the flats around Duddeston.
• 57307 heads 1A78 14:14 Holyhead - Euston past Ffynnongroyw at 15:23 on Thursday 4th October 2007.
• 57308 passes Whitacre Jct with 1B48, the 12:05 Wolverhampton - Euston, diverted via Nuneaton due to engineering work on the Coventry route. This picture was taken at 12:53 on Monday 28th August 2006, a day of sunny intervals and dark clouds.
• 57309 threads through the trees at Spring Vale (Coseley) with 1B22 16:18 Wolverhampton - Euston on Sunday 29th July 2007. The loco-hauled diagram had produced intermittently since the dragging started, but it did appear on this occasion and 90020 is just visible in the gap between the trees. One of the ironies of the Black Country landscape in recent years is that as it's become greener many views have been lost to uncontrolled vegetation, both around the railways and elsewhere.
• The River Tame runs along the north-east side of Bescot yard, but crosses to the south side of the railway just before it passes under the motorway near Newton Road. Bridge 21 takes the railway over the river, and the picture shows 57310 heading 1B22, the 16:12 off Wolverhampton - Euston, crossing the river at 16:24 on Sunday 29th June 2008.
• 57312 approaches Coseley with 1B22, the 16.18 Wolverhampton - Euston. This shot was taken at 16.26 on Sunday 21st August 2005, when Euston trains were being dragged between Wolverhampton and Nuneaton. Not the exact result I was after as some high cloud had taken the top off the light, and there was slightly less sun on the nose of the loco than I'd wanted. But my camera needed an outing and not taking any sort of shot over what had been a lovely weekend would have been rather wasteful.
• 57313 coasts into Birmingham New St with 1B38, the 12:18 Wolverhampton - Euston. This shot was taken at 12:45 on Saturday 2nd April 2005, the first day of a new season of Nuneaton "drags". In the past Euston trains were only dragged over the non-electrified stretch of line between New St and Nuneaton, but now that the (passenger) railway has lost the art of coupling and uncoupling the diesel stays on to and from Wolverhampton. New St is pretty useless for photos, but this shot from the end of platform 4B is one of the very few available. 57313 was once 47371, a Knottingley coal loco when I was growing up. In those days it would have been incredibly rare in the West Midlands, but I have a dim memory of once seeing it at New St on a summer Saturday cross-country train heading west. The less said about what's been done to it now the better.
• 57313 again, now in unbranded blue livery and working the "WAG" express, a train run on behalf of the Welsh Assembly. The 16:15 Cardiff - Holyhead is seen here passing Stokesay, just south of Craven Arms, at 17:49 on Monday 1st June 2009.
• A new season of Wolverhampton - Nuneaton drags commenced on Saturday 7th July 2007. As ever staple fare was Class 57s hauling Pendolinos, but for a short period the loco-hauled standby set can sometimes be turned out for a single Euston - Wolverhampton and return working on Sundays. On 8th July 90031 duly worked 1G09/1B22, the 11:56 from Euston and 16:18 back. 57313 was used to drag both these trains north of Nuneaton, and this photo shows 1B22 passing Spring Vale, just north of Coseley, at 16:24. The picture was taken from the relatively new bridge which takes the Black Country Route over both the canal and the railway. Many years ago, on what may as well have been another planet, Bilston steelworks would have dominated the background to this scene.
• 57314 bursts under Sandy Lane bridge at the south end of Bescot yard with 1B22, the 16:12 Wolverhampton - Euston. This shot was taken from the northbound platform at Tame Bridge station at 16:25 on Sunday 15th June 2008. The location is more properly referred to as Newton Jct, and the shadows top and bottom are courtesy of the A4031 Walsall - West Bromwich road.
• 57314 again, this time in a much nicer spot, approaching Abergele with 1D22 Euston - Holyhead. This picture was taken at 12:01 on Friday 24th October 2008, and I was very lucky with the light. The sun appeared at about the time the loco was two train lengths from me, and had gone again by the time the back of the train had cleared the footbridge. This is my view of the North Wales railway in a single frame: sea, sunshine, semaphores and caravans.
• 57316 passes Dorrington with 1V31 Holyhead - Cardiff at 08:24 on Wednesday 24th June 2009.
• The return working of the previous photo, 1W91 Cardiff - Holyhead, heading north away from Craven Arms at 17:43 on Wednesday 24th 2009. 57316 is still in charge.
• 57601 climbs towards Bloxwich with a 2Z01 Stafford - Crewe inspection saloon working on Thursday 29th June 2006. This train had visited the Chiltern line and Oxford during the day. Its return north saw it routed through New St, Bescot and Cannock and I chose to cover it at Leamore, just south of Bloxwich. The train was due here at 16:45 but didn't appear until 17:37, by which time I was beginning to wonder whether it had gone off route. In the event the late running resulted in a long wait, but I was happy enough having got it in the sun - something that wasn't completely guaranteed on this day.
• 57601 again, this time climbing away from Bordesley Jct with 1T66, the 09:42 New St - Cheltenham relief train. This service ran between Tuesday 13th and Friday 16th March 2007, and provided extra capacity for the Cheltenham Festival race meeting. It was booked via the Camp Hill line, although the corresponding return in the evening ran via Selly Oak. I'd attempted this shot on Wednesday 14th, but the light wasn't really satisfactory. No such problems on Friday 16th though, and this picture was taken at 09:50 with the train running right time.