Mystery location! 40168 ex-Scottish Region Class 40 passes a signal box on the Settle & Carlisle railway with 1E23 10.40 Carlisle to Leeds
<b>Class 40 Indian Summer</b>
40168, an ex-Haymarket Scottish Class 40, approaches Settle station box - one of the many Victorian signal boxes on the route, whilst working 1E23 10.40 Carlisle - Leeds in the summer of 1984. Yours truly was on for the ride and I made the most of one of my relatively few through runs down the fabulous Settle &amp; Carlisle railway - probably the best scenery from the train window in England - by bagging the front window for much of the journey 😎

<u><b>'A day in the life' - log book update:</b></u> 
<u>Saturday 21st July 1984</u> - 40168 on 1E23 10.40 Carlisle - Leeds.

<b>CARLISLE</b>
Armathwaite
Lazonby
Langwathby
APPLEBY
Kirkby Stephen
Ais Gill Summit
Garsdale
Dent
Ribblehead
Horton-in-Ribblesdale
SETTLE
Hellifield
SKIPTON
Keighley
Shipley
<b>LEEDS</b>

<b>113 miles</b>

Between 1982 and 1984 I spent many happy hours with my friends chasing around the North of England after the remaining Class 40s. At the beginning of 1984, there were still 50 members of the fleet in service, but this had already reduced down to 33 by the time I had 40168 towards the end of July. Two more fine locos 40001 &amp; 40057 were withdrawn the very next day (22 Jul). By the end of the summer timetable, just 25 remained in service, and only 17 of the class survived into 1985, all but 3 being withdrawn over the weekend of 21st/22nd Jan 1985.

D200/40122, 40118 and 40012 were kept on just for rail tours, although D200 had a second Indian summer :)

<b>Locomotive History</b>
<b>D368 / 40168</b>
D368 was built by the English Electric Company at their Vulcan Foundry Works, Newton-Le-Willows, Lancashire and entered traffic in Dec 1961. It was one of a batch of 11 Class 40’s (D358-D368) which would always be associated with Haymarket (HA) MPD, being used on passenger, parcels and express freight duties from Edinburgh to Newcastle, Carlisle, Inverness and Aberdeen. It would eventually be transferred away from Haymarket at the start of the 1980’s and would spend its final few years allocated to Longsight (LO). 40168 would survive in traffic until Nov 1984 when it was withdrawn with a damaged engine. It would linger until Jul 1986 before finally being broken up at Crewe Works. This detailed history courtesy of <a href="/photos/pics-by-john/" rel="noreferrer nofollow">John Woolley Photos</a>

My interest in the railways waned permanently with the demise of the Class 50s, initially from the Paddington-Oxford route in 1990, and finally when they retired from the Waterloo-Exeter services in 1992.

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. ;)

Taken with a Zenith TTL SLR camera and standard lens. <b>Scanned from the original negative with no 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>

<i>'Indian Summer' - a period of happiness or success occurring late in life...English Electric Type 4 1958-1984</i>
40168 368 d368 class40 1e23 settlecarlisle signalbox landscape pennines