Urban blight! 40084 + 40086 thread their way through the urban scenery in Ashton under Lyne, Manchester on 1Z94 'The Silver Jubilee' railtour
<b>Challenged photos from the 1980s - or memories of a mis-spent youth</b>

<b>Class 40 Indian Summer - the railtours</b>
Between Dec 1982 'Christmas Cracker I&quot; and Dec 1985 'Christmas Cracker IV', I managed to ride 18 Class 40 hauled rail tours. This was my second, and one of only three that involved a pair of 40s :)

<u><b>'A day in the life' - log book update:</b></u>  
<b>Sat. 5th March 1983 1Z94 - 'The Silver Jubilee' railtour</b>
The only thing to trump a bit of Class 40 haulage - <b>a pair 😎:)</b>
A rather excellent railtour organised by the CFPS that was hauled throughout by ex-Royal Train duty Class 40s 40084 &amp; 40086 :)

More on the railtour here: <a href="https://www.sixbellsjunction.co.uk/80s/830305c4.htm" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.sixbellsjunction.co.uk/80s/830305c4.htm</a>

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 36 by the time at the end of May. 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end of the summer timetable, just 25 remained in service, and only 17 of the class survived into 1985, all but 3 being withdrawn over the weekend of 21st/22nd Jan 1985.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 :)

My interest in the railways waned permanently around 1990-91 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. ;)

<b>Photos that were nearly lost to oblivion!</b>
The original slide was rescued from a box of 'duds' that I could never quite bring myself to throw away - now I am glad that I kept them ;)

Taken with a Zenith TTL SLR camera and standard lens, using a slow shutter speed due to low light but thankfully not blurred :) <b>Scanned from the original slide 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>
d284 d286 284 286 40084 40086 class40 diesel locomotive greenfield manchester pennines railtour thesilverjubilee bashers railbashers railenthusiasts urban dereliction scrapyard