'Double Up Sunday' - Class 37s
The sound of a 1750hp English Electric 12CSVT diesel engine rumbling through Greet Tunnel is hard to beat, especially when there’s two of them!
Home resident English Electric Type 3 (Class 37) diesel-electric locomotives No’s D6948 & 37215 will be ‘Doubling Up’ on Sunday the 26th of April on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway, both double-heading and top ‘n’ tailing train services throughout the day, giving visitors and diesel enthusiasts the full ‘English Electric’ experience. 309 locomotives were built by English Electric between 1960 and 1965, with construction being carried out at Vulcan Foundry in Newton-le-Willows and Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns in Darlington. The Class 37s were versatile and reliable locomotives which made light work of heavy freight trains and mainline passenger services on both primary and secondary routes. The locomotives had a low axle load and a route availability of 5 (RA5) meaning that the could travel virtually anywhere on the national rail network, which made them particularly useful for operating services on branch lines across the country. Due to their reliability, a number of sub-classes were developed over the years to extend their life span, so much so that over 90 locomotives still exist today, either in active mainline service, long term storage, or in preservation.
The Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway currently has two members of the class in its home fleet which are both permanent residents.
37215 (D6915) is a 37/0 owned by The Growler Group and was built at Newton-le-Willows in 1963. The locomotive operated for the best part of 29 years before it was taken out of service in 1992. The Type 3 was preserved in 1994 and arrived at Toddington in the summer of the same year. It was restored to full working order in 1998, with 2023 marking the significant milestone of 25 year’s of active preservation service. In 2007, 37215 was repainted in to a high standard in BR blue livery as worn by the class during the 1970s and 1980s.
D6948 (37248) is a 37/0 owned by four individuals who are members of The Growler Group. The locomotive was built at Newton-le-Willowsin 1964 and came to Toddington in 2010 wearing West Coast Railways livery and carrying its TOPS running number of 37248 (the locomotive had been restored to operational condition at Carnforth by West Coast Railways as part of a loan agreement which expired in 2009). Under preservation, the Type 3 under went an extensive refurbishment to ‘as built’ 1964 condition taking many years, which included the provision of steam heating and a return to BR green livery with small yellow warning panels (GSYP). 2023 will see the return of D6948 to a Diesel Gala (with its last appearance at a diesel gala being the summer of 2019) having spent the past three years ‘on the sidelines’. The locomotive returned to active service again earlier this year.