British Rail Class 31

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Class 31, no. 31018, at the National Railway Museum in York, on 3 June 2004. This was the first locomotive of the Class to be built in 1957. It was withdrawn from service in 1976. It currently carries BR Blue livery. Note the absence of over-window head code panel, which were only omitted from the first few locomotives.

Class 31, no. 31454, stabled at Westbury on 16 April 2004. This locomotive is painted in InterCity livery, and is owned by Fragonset Railways. It is hired to Wessex Trains to haul trains from Bristol to Brighton and Weymouth.

Class 31, no. 31271 'Stratford 1840-2001', at the York Railfest, on 3 June 2004. This event was held to celebrate the 200th anniversary of railways. The locomotive is preserved at the Midland Railway Butterley, but is currently on loan to the Nene Valley Railway. It carries Trainload Construction livery, and was named to commemorate the former locomotive depot at Stratford, which closed to make way for the new Channel Tunnel Rail Link.

Class 31, no. 31128 'Charybdis' at Bristol Temple Meads on 23 July 2004. This locomotive is owned by Fragonset Railways, but hired to Wessex Trains to haul trains from Bristol to Brighton and Weymouth.

The British Rail Class 31 diesel locomotives, also known as the Brush Type 2, were built by Brush Traction from 1957-62.

[edit] Description

The Class 31 was one of the Pilot Scheme locomotives ordered by British Railways to replace steam traction. They were originally built with Mirrlees 1250bhp and 1365bhp engines, but these were not successful and in 1964 a programme of works commenced to re-engine the fleet with 1470bhp English Electric engines and Brush electrical equipment. The locomotives were originally known as class 30 under TOPS, with re-engines examples joining Class 31. The class was originally intended for service on the Eastern Region, but gradually became common in both the Western and London Midland regions too.

Several sub-classes of Class 31 exist:

• 31/0 - First batch of locos, fitted with electro-magnetic control equipment - withdrawn early as non-standard
• 31/1 - The standard locomotive
• 31/4 - Fitted with ETH apparatus
• 31/5 - Former 31/4 with the ETH isolated for Civil Engineers Department use

[edit] Refurbishment

[edit] Current operations

[edit] English, Welsh and Scottish Railway (EWS)

The final three EWS locomotives were withdrawn in 2001.

[edit] FM Rail

In 1998, FM Rail (then known as Fragonset Railways) purchased four redundant Class 31 locomotives from EWS. The first of these, no. 31452, was quickly repaired and repainted in a new black livery with a red mid-body band. It was quickly followed by nos. 31459 and 31468. Several more locomotives were also purchased, and in 1999, the first of two modified Class 31/6 locomotives re-entered traffic. The Class 31/6 subclass is essentially a modified Class 31/1 locomotive with through electric-train heating wiring. This enables a Class 31/4 and Class 31/6 to work in multiple and still heat the train, even if the no-heat Class 31/6 is attached to the carriages.

In 1999, Fragonset won a short-term contract with Silverlink for two locomotives to work in top-and-tail mode with two Mk. 1 carriages on the Bletchley-Bedford line. This was to cover for the non-availability of Class 117 and Class 121 diesel multiple units. The trial was a success, and in 2000 it was repeated in the summer timetable. The locomotives were retained until displaced by more modern Class 150/1 units cascaded from Central Trains.

By this time, the Fragonset Class 31 fleet had expanded considerably to include three Class 31/1, three Class 31/4 and two Class 31/6 locomotives. Regular work at this time included use hauling Class 317 electric multiple units from WAGN's Hornsey depot to Bedford for use with Thameslink. As units were still maintained at Hornsey, this meant regular workings between the two depots to swap units when maintenance was due.

[edit] Network Rail

Network Rail operates a small fleet of three Class 31/1 locomotive, nos. 31105/233/285, to haul test trains around the network. The locomotives were purchased from Fragonset, and overhauled at their Derby workshops. They have been repainted in Network Rail's new all-over yellow livery.

Prior to operating its own locomotives, Network Rail's predecessor, Railtrack, had hired two Class 31 locomotives from Fragonset. These two locomotives, nos. 31190 and 31601, were repainted in Raltrack's blue and lime green livery. With the overhaul and entry into service of Network Rail's own locomotives, these two engines were returned to Fragonset.

[edit] Preservation

Several locomotives have been preserved for use on heritage railways. These are listed below. Of note, are the first built, no. 31018, and the last built, no. 31327.

In addition, the following locomotives were previously preserved, but have since been scrapped.

• 31123 ex-Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway - scrapped in 2006
• 31442 ex-Churnet Valley Railway - scrapped in 2004
• 31467 ex-East Lancashire Railway - cannibalised for spares to return 31556 to working order

[edit] Fleet Details

EWS = English, Welsh and Scottish Railway

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British Rail Class 31