25 Years of Derek Cross Diesels
Presenter: David Cross
Hybrid Meeting both Physically at Shenfield Parish Hall and via Zoom
David’s father, Derek, was a prolific photographer in the sixties and seventies but unlike many of his peers, he continued to take railway pictures after 1968 despite the demise of steam. The early 1960’s saw large numbers of very short life diesels and photos of many of these long-forgotten classes were included in David’s presentation which showed them at work and not just in a rusting line awaiting the cutter’s torch!
Diesel locos really got into their groove in the late 1960s and were to be found on all freight workings and away from the electrified lines, pretty much all long-distance passenger services. It was interesting to see the length of some of the trains – A class 40 hauled Glasgow to Manchester with 12 on and a buffet car included whereas today, you will try to find a seat on a 5-car unit with a trolley service if you are lucky! Another category of train, rarely seen today, are the holiday specials: 15 coaches behind a pair of class 26’s making its way to Blackpool or a Summer Saturday through service from Birkenhead to Margate. Shots of Motorail trains elicited excited discussion on the types of cars being conveyed rather than on the Class 47 at the front of the train.
It was nice to see a different aspect of the railway of 60 or so years ago where steam was incidental in the background, rather than the main star. Whilst many of the locos featured had been withdrawn by the 1970s, a great number of classes survived into the 1980s and 1990s. Even more notable were the classes that are still to be found on the network today. It is hard to believe that a Class 20 photographed in 1962 is still in regular use today over 60 years later. The introduction of the HSTs led to the demise of the Westerns and the Deltics and yet surely these first appeared more recently than 50 years ago? It is perhaps a testament to their longevity that an HST photographed when newly introduced in 1976 can still be seen in daily service as part of the Inter7City fleet in Scotland.