Class 50 50020 'Revenge' seen at Southampton station with 1V12 - the 11.59 Portsmouth Harbour - Plymouth service
<b>Memories of the fine art of Vac bashing</b>
Between 1983 and 1991 I spent many, many happy hours with my friends riding the rails behind the mighty 'Hoovers' or Class 50s. As well as enjoying the thrash, I managed to record many of the trips and railway scenes encountered on film for posterity. Those days are now long gone, but happily the photos remain for me to reminisce over and share ;)

Class 50 50020 'Revenge' is seen at the head of 1V12 - the 11.59 Portsmouth Harbour - Plymouth service at Southampton station.

In the late 1980s, a new service was introduced between Waterloo and Plymouth via Portsmouth Harbour - Class 50s providing the allocated motive power. This gave enthusiasts a great opportunity to cover the unusual route for the class between Woking - Portsmouth - Southampton - Salisbury.

<u><b>'A day in the life' - log book update:</b></u>
<u>Friday 24th June 1988</u> - After 'bagging' my last 3D (Hampshire) DEMU <b>1305</b> for haulage, from Southampton to Cosham, I took <b>50020 'Revenge'</b> from Cosham (12.14) via Fareham (12.23-25) to Southampton (12.47) - load 9 Mark 2s. For <b>50043 'Eagle'</b> on 1O28 (09.40 Plymouth - Portsmouth Harbour) from Southampton (13.42) to Portsmouth Harbour (14.36) - followed by 50043 again on 1P40 (15.30 Portsmouth Harbour - Waterloo) departed Portsmouth Harbour (15.38) and arrived at Waterloo (17.05) - load also 9 Mark 2s.

<b>Locomotive History</b>
D420 entered service 04-May-68
Renumbered 50020 in 1974
Named 'Revenge' 07-Jul-78
Withdrawn 27-Jul-90
'Revenge' never made it into preservation, being cut up at Booth's of Rotherham in 1992.
 
<b>50020 “Revenge”</b> was amongst a batch of nine locos sent to Booths scrapyard in Rotherham early in 1992 along with 50001, 50004, 50016, 50023, 50026, 50036, 50040 and 50045. All nine locos were part of a bid by Operation Collingwood - an engineering charity established in the early 1990s to enable young engineering apprentices to rebuild the locomotives - however, as the required funding was not forthcoming, Booths forced Operation Collingwood to choose the best five, with the others to be cut up. 50004, 50016, 50020 and 50036 were all cut up in the spring of 1992. The charity was wound up in 2002 and 50001, 50023, 50040 and 50045 met a similar fate. 50026 was the only one saved.

Information courtesy of Wikipedia: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_50" rel="noreferrer nofollow">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_50</a>

Taken with a Nikon F-501 SLR camera and 75-200mm zoom lens using fairly grainy monochrome print film. <b>Scanned from the original negative with minimal digital restoration.</b>

You can see a random selection of my railway photos here on Flickriver: <a href="http://www.flickriver.com/photos/themightyhood/random/" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.flickriver.com/photos/themightyhood/random/</a>
diesel southampton class50 50020 station 420 locomotive d420