Your Favourite Locomotive.

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What is your favourite model locomotive?

I have fond memories of the BR Class 47 diesel locomotives, also the Class 86 and 87 electric ones that operated on the West Coast Mainline in the 1970s. My favourites are probably the Paxman-Valenta HST Inter-City 125 units which ran services from Paddington to Bristol and South Wales.

EDITED: I obviously meant to refer to Class 87, not 97!

Last edited by DeepHour on 24 Oct 2022, 12:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

They re-engined the HST's costing millions not long before they decided to withdraw them.
Remember the class 47's well. Worked trains with class 50's ad when training worked trains with a 37.
My favourite real life train has to be the 143 as they were so easy to use for the guard and so quick accelerating, especially when they had the bus style seats with the thinner floors! They regularly hit well over 80mph (About 83 to 86 flat out depending on the units) before they fitted them with black boxes, and I often used to head out with an all stopping service 5 minuted behind a HST (Which would only stop at the main stops) and though I would leave each stop to time, we kept catching up with the HST's as their acdeleration was nothing like a 143.

I don't think I ever travelled on a train that was hauled by a Class 55 Deltic, but these were obviously very impressive and even iconic locomotives, and I very much wish I had.

First time I travelled on an HST was in June 1977.I bought a cheap day return (and they really were cheap in those days) from Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads, and remember that it did the 77 miles to Swindon in 45 minutes (it was timetabled for 49 minutes).

That was seriously impressive, and I bet today's services would struggle to beat that, though I wouldn't know, as I was priced off the trains years ago.

The one in this video:

thomas the tank engine