Summer of '84 - 40160 soon to depart Blackpool North with 2J38 - the 19.35 to Manchester Victoria
<b>Class 40 Indian Summer - 2J38</b>
Every day for a week during August 1984, the 19.35 evening DMU working between Blackpool North and Manchester Victoria was replaced with a Class 40 and Mark 1s. The workings were an absolute riot as it was all stations and plenty of thrash. I had two runs behine 40160 that week - here she is looking nice and oily shortly before departure from Blackpool. A vintage Class 120 Swindon DMU can be seen approaching under the fine collection of semaphore signals.

<u><b>'A day in the life' - log book update:</b></u> 
<u>Tuesday 14th August 1984</u> - 40160 on 2J38 19.35 Blackpool North - Manchester Victoria vice DMU 

<b>BLACKPOOL NORTH</b>
Poulton le Fylde
Kirkham &amp; Wesham
PRESTON
Leyland
Chorley
BOLTON
Agecroft Jnct.
Windsor Bridge Jnct.
Salford
<b>MANCHESTER VICTORIA

48m all stations ;)</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 29 by the time I had 40160 in the middle of August. 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end of the summer timetable, just 25 remained in service, and only 17 of the class survived into 1985, all but 3 being withdrawn over the weekend of 21st/22nd Jan 1985.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 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. <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>
station blackpool 40160 class40 blackpoolnorth 2j38 class120 dmu semaphoresignals