What happened in 1984 then ?
1984 began with some new additions to the Class 31/4 fleet and during the year, no less than 27 newly renumbered and refurbished locomotives joined the ranks of the existing ‘Classic Series’ and seven so called ‘Ewoks’ which had already entered service.
The haste with which these new conversions were commissioned meant that teething troubles were wholesale. A few locomotives were particularly disaster prone and during the year nos. 31431/32/56 spent long periods sidelined at Immingham having disgraced themselves once too often. Some conversions were sent back to Doncaster Works for rectification, but on the bright side, a few did manage extended periods in service on the new Immingham diagrams (31440/47/48 being about the best). Many of the refurbished locos spent lengthy periods on loan (unofficially) to March and here they tended to fare better in terms of longevity between failures.
Until May the passenger diagrams in the north were largely restricted to two on the Scarborough - York - Leeds/Bradford/Huddersfield axis and often the same diagram would see the same loco rostered for days on end, but from the May timetable change, a policy change from dmu to loco hauled travel saw major expansion to include the services radiating from Hull to Manchester, Lancaster , York and Carlisle. Indeed Hull became (temporarily) a mecca for lovers of Class 31 haulage. The new services were lightweight four or five coach formations, hence calling for little in the way of strenuous operation, however, the daily Hull - Carlisle service was strengthened on
Summer Saturdays and sometimes received a pair of 31s. With the winter 84 timetable, a single loco once again became the usual power, but a decision was soon made to use a pair of 31/4s whenever circumstances allowed. Two possible reasons that spring to mind are occasions when 31432 (on its own) failed on the Settle & Carlisle line causing long delays and 31453 suffered excessive wheelslip during the leaf fall season. Once operation in pairs became standard, the 31s coped admirably well it must be said. Mention must also be made of the Hope Valley route which gave the locos a reasonable test despite the limited formations.
Further south, the winter weather at the start of 1984 was quite severe and the Stratford allocation of Class 47s went through a very unreliable patch. Class 31/4s came to the rescue on a daily basis and this even included on occasions pairs working on Liverpool Street - Norwich expresses.
The Norwich - Birmingham services remained a mainstay of Class 31/4 operation. Summer Saturdays apart, these services normally loaded to 6 or 7 coaches. During January, 31418 appeared for 22 consecutive days on these services.
In May, the diagrams were revamped to include return services from Wolverhampton to Harwich and Cambridge to London. In addition a new Mon-Sats diagram involving no less than 596 miles in a single day was introduced, this began at Derby with 5G85 and covered a Leicester - Birmingham local then the 08.15 Birmingham -Norwich, 13.32 return and 18.15 back to Norwich (1E82). Next day the turn continued with a shorter mileage starting as the 07.41 Norwich - Birmingham (1M30) and finishing with a 12.31 New Street to Peterborough and 17.20 return before heading with ecs to Derby (5M05) to take up the ‘long diagram’ again. In theory therefore, a loco which began on the ‘long’ diagram on Monday, could find itself doing the same on Wednesday and Friday ! 31413 spent 12 days on this cycle in October for example.
The ‘Classic Series’ 31/4s managed well considering the unloved way some of them had been treated by the WR. Later in the year March had its allocation increased by way of receiving nos. 31408-11 from Immingham. Failures were, nevertheless, fairly common, usually the inevitable ‘loss of coolant’ or ‘high water temperature’ being to blame. One loco that made a name for itself in this respect was 31424 which in the early Summer seemed to boil over every time the sun shone. In the end, it became a candidate for a successful experiment already used on a few locos on its radiator grilles and soon, further locos with similar problems began to visit Immingham (whose idea it was) for the ‘vertical grilles’ treatment. This wasn’t the first attempt at solving the coolant problems associated with the class and most of the ‘Classic Series’ had already had their exhaust cowls inverted to resemble a hat. The vertical grilles modification was eventually adopted by nos. 31405/424/429/432/433/460 as well as several Class 31/1s.
The year also saw the first Heavy General Overhauls given to the Classic Series, with 31412/16/23 all being treated. Initially these locomotives suffered from the same teething problems as the newly renumbered series and it was far from uncommon to experience failures (see the locomotive charts for further detail).
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