From Railways Illustrated editor Pip Dunn: Railway photography for me is about two things: a record for capturing a point in time to preserve a memory and an art form to create a great-looking image. Sometimes for me that is to recreate an essence of how things used to be. I’m always looking out for a composition that takes me back to when I was young, particularly the early 1980s. I like the challenge of capturing an image that looks almost like it could have been taken in the past. This is hard because modern details creep into the scene. It requires a suitable subject, an appropriate backdrop, often some tight composition to exclude modernity, and some compromises. It’s rarely going to be a perfect recreation of the past, but it is great fun trying to be disciplined to avoid modern giveaways.
First encounter with 40106
I first copped Longsight’s 40106 at Manchester Victoria during a half-term spotting trip with my dad on Thursday, October 29, 1981. According to the excellent Class 40 Motherlist website, it was on 1D21, the 15.42 Manchester Victoria-Bangor. That was a hugely memorable day as 55002 The King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry passed through on 1E99, the 13.05 Liverpool LS-York, by then a semi-regular Deltic turn. Failed 55004 Queen’s Own Highlander was also dragged through by 31405 on its way back to York, having failed at Lime Street the previous night on 1M76. We also squeezed in a visit to my dad’s then depot, Newton Heath TMD.
Seeing the locomotive again
I’d catch up again with 40106 at Victoria on Saturday, August 28, 1982, when coincidentally it was again on 1D21, 15.45 Manchester Victoria-Bangor.
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40106 was very much a celebrity back then, in its BR green livery with yellow nose ends. At one time it had been an anonymous Class 40, one of 200, but the peculiar decision to retain its BR green livery in September 1978 instantly set it apart.
BR green locomotives in the late 1970s
There were a number of BR locos that retained BR green livery into the very late 1970s and even into 1980. Willesden’s 08934 was the last Class 08 to wear original BR green with lion and wheel emblem and was not painted into BR blue until mid-1980. Toton’s 20141 was the last Class 20 to retain its original BR green and this too succumbed to the corporate BR blue makeover at Glasgow Works in the spring of 1980. That left only the Class 15 and Class 31 electric train heating units in BR green on the main line network.
That decision to repaint 40106 in BR green at Crewe Works therefore seems an odd decision, particularly so firmly in the BR corporate image era. This was long before celebrity repaints in the 1980s when last survivors of loco types or multiple units would get an approximation of a BR green repaint.
Repaint decisions and repairs
Ironically, 40106 had been scheduled for a repaint into BR blue on a previous visit to Crewe Works for a classified repair between May and July 1973, but the repaint didn’t happen, for some reason. Perhaps a traction shortage required it back in service.
40106 could so easily have been one of the early Class 40 losses as following a collision and derailment at Peak Forest in June 1976, it was on decision at Reddish depot where my dad worked at the time. Repairs were authorised in July 1976 which saw it back at Crewe Works later that month, where it stayed until released in early November 1976 – and still it wasn’t painted blue!
Return to Crewe Works
It had therefore become extremely shabby in its BR green by the summer of 1978 and entered Crewe Works yet again for a classified repair in August 1978, emerging in early October 1978 in a fresh coat of BR green with yellow nose ends. There was some debate about whether 40106 actually received BR blue during that Crewe Works visit. Some sources suggest it did and that it was hastily repainted, but there is no photographic evidence.
I wonder if this decision to retain BR green was because by then, 40106 had become a bit of a survivor and had twice evaded the BR blue paint brush at Crewe Works. It had the immediate impact of 40106 becoming a celebrity loco, instantly recognisable and a popular choice for railtours and events such as the May 1980 Rainhill cavalcade.
Withdrawal and preservation
Its time in the limelight would end due to withdrawal on April 18, 1983, by which time a decision had been made to recover 40122 (D200) from the scrap line at Carlisle Kingmoor for assessment at Crewe Works, followed shortly by a repaint into BR green at Toton TMD. Luckily, the future for 40106 would be secured in preservation.
A modern scene with a historic feel
40106 in BR green rolls into Bury Bolton Street on December 27, 2025, with the 12.15 from Heywood. Or is it a scene from the North West in 1981/82 when this particular Class 40 was still a notable machine?
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