The Great Eastern Railway Since 1991

Geoff Brockett treated us to a varied colourful afternoon presentation featuring “The Great Eastern Railway since 1991”. We covered all lines emanating from Liverpool Street and Fenchurch Street, stopping at most of the prominent stations and junctions along all routes.

In 1991 nearly all the express services were Class 86 hauled with Mk 2 coaches but.gradually the Class 90’s took over. There were many changes as services were transferred from one franchise company to another, moving from Anglia Trains, to National Express, then to Abelio, all adapting varying liveries.

We spent a short time on the Bure Valley Railway followed by a look at various specials that ran over these tracks, including D9000 working summer Saturdays from Liverpool Street to Great Yarmouth; also the steam shuttles that worked Liverpool Street to Southend.

After the break, there was a miscellany of traction, with quite a lot of freight working via Ely to Ipswich and Harwich plus those freight services around the North London line running into East Anglia via Stratford to Tilbury, March and onto to the Freight terminals. We saw special workings also such as Class 37’s hauling Class 321 units away for scrapping, Class 47’s taking Class 379 units to Worksop for storage, and other oddities like a pair GBRF Class 20’s and a Chiltern Trains Class 68 hired in to assist. Geoff finished the presentation bringing us bang up to date with a look at the present scene with multiple units now everywhere, showing Classes 455, 745 and 720, along with some shots  of the Docklands Light Railway.

A very busy entertaining presentation.

Dave Elsdon

Branch Secretary