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Andy Coward Editor

50050 Fearless and 50007 Sir Edward Elgar are pictured rounding the curve at Oborne, running as 1Z40, the 08.52 London Waterloo to Exeter St Davids, during Pathfinder Tours’ ‘50 Terminator’ farewell charter on March 26, 1994. This marked the end of British Rail’s operation of the Class 50s, which had spanned 27 years since D400 (50050) entered service in October 1967.

Martin Loader

Welcome to a specially extended March 2024 issue of Railways Illustrated, which is largely dedicated to the popular English Electric Class 50s to commemorate the 30^th anniversary of the end of their operations on British Rail. The final Class 50-hauled charters took place during March 1994 and concluded with the ’50 Terminator’ on March 26, 1994, just a few days before BR was also consigned to the history books as rail privatisation came into effect from April 1.

Two years ago we produced a special issue to mark the 40^th anniversary of the withdrawal of the Deltics, which was well-received by many of our readers, so we’ve decided to do another and I hope you enjoy it. If you have a favourite type of locomotive that has a significant anniversary approaching and you think it’s worthy of a dedicated issue of Railways Illustrated, then please get in touch.

I appreciate that if you are not a follower of the Class 50s then this issue might not be entirely to your taste, but hopefully the features we have assembled will still include something of interest. As with the Deltic special issue, we have tried to provide coverage of both the end of the BR operating period and also some of the lesser-known elements of the preservation story.

The Class 50s were a locomotive design that was never really allowed to fade away. They gained a huge following, especially once the first withdrawals began in 1987, but when the first examples were secured for preservation in 1991 there were plenty of the locomotives still working services for Network SouthEast and on other duties, so as they gradually disappeared from BR services, the preserved examples could still be enjoyed by followers on heritage lines.

Who would have thought when 50007 Sir Edward Elgar and 50050 Fearless worked that final charter train on March 26, 1994, that both locomotives would be registered for main line running 30 years later, with 50007 – now carrying its original name of Hercules again – being part of the Class 50 Alliance stable and 50050 operated by Boden Rail Engineering.

And they aren’t the only main line performers from the fleet

This article is from...

Railways Illustrated Magazine

30 January 2024

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