The Idea Behind The Site ....

My name is Gerard Fletcher and between the years of 1984 and 1990, I was producer of 'THE CHARTS' - nothing to do with the Top 40 I hasten to add.

I cannot admit to having been the original inspiration behind the concept of the charts and this claim to fame belongs to my great friend Mark Chaplin.

Mark began the charts in 1984 in an attempt to track the whereabouts of the class 31/4 locomotives in East Anglia. The idea being that by tracking the 31/4s, one could predict which passenger trains would produce a steam heat or NB Class 31/1. The Charts themselves were merely pieces of graph paper showing the whereabouts of locomotives on a daily basis (the background to pages on this site is an original chart from 1984).

My interest was more in the ETH Class 31s themselves and Mark soon delegated the task of keeping up the charts to me. This was a sound move, as my proximity to the maintenance depot at March and my contacts there proved very helpful during the subsequent 6 years.

Initially only locomotives which worked in East Anglia were included, but after a while, all 68 Class 31/4s were tracked.

Eventually I plan to include all the gen I have up to 1990. To look up an individual locomotive, go to the Gen Files section and click on the coloured icons. The gen is a bit sparse at the moment but I am updating as often as possible. The files are in MS Excel format, but if you get a message saying that you can't view the file, just click OK and it should appear ! Strange things computers. These files will be continually updated as I gradually transfer the information - a long job as you will appreciate.

Headcodes relate to the working timetables for the period. The earliest gen (Jan - May'84) has times for trains rather than headcodes, but I plan to rectify this when time allows.