It is now more than 30 years since Class 46 Peak D172 Ixion first returned to the main line with a test run to Sheffield, becoming the first privately-owned heritage diesel locomotive to operate over British Rail metals. Andy Coward met up with the locomotive’s owner, Pete Waterman, to recall his memories from three decades ago.
The name Pete Waterman needs little introduction to most people. The renowned record producer, television personality, businessman and entrepreneur is almost as well-known for his passion and dedication to the railways as he is in the music and entertainment industry.
In the late 1980s, Pete purchased 25909 from British Rail for preservation and moved his newly-purchased Class 25 – the last locomotive to be built by Beyer Peacock at Gorton, in Manchester – to the East Lancashire Railway, marking the start of a remarkable locomotive collection that went on to include numerous steam and diesel locomotives, including Pete at one time being part-owner alongside the late Sir William McAlpine of legendary LNER A3 Pacific steam locomotive 4472 Flying Scotsman.
Pete’s links with the railway community run deep and although his collection of standard gauge steam and diesel locomotives is now much more modest than it was during the 1990s, his passion remains as strong as ever.
These days, his remaining locomotives are based at Rowsley South at Peak Rail, where the Waterman Railways Heritage Trust (WRHT) shares shed facilities with the Derbyshire heritage railway. The overhaul of former Great Western Railway 2-8-0T steam locomotive 5224 is currently underway, while over the past couple years his staff have successfully completed the overhaul of Pete’s GWR 2-6-2T Small Prairie steam locomotive 5553 and have also returned his Class 25 – now immaculately restored to two-tone BR green and renumbered to its original identity of D7659 – to service after almost a quarter of a century out of use.
However, lying outside in the yard at Rowsley is the unmistakable sight of Class 46 Peak diesel locomotive 46035, another asset of the WRHT collection. Out of use for more than 20 years, it looks in reasonabl
