08873 - A Belated Obituary...

Another Gronk lost is former RES 08873 which was a few months shy of it's 61st Birthday. Seen here in better times at Southampton Maritime in November 2016 when the veteran had just been powered up to shunt the terminal whilst on hire to Freightliner. 

History wise....

Introduced in November 1960 as D4041 and a product of Darlington works she was put to use in the Sheffield area, spending just short of a decade floating between Darnall and Tinsley etc. A trip to the big smoke in 1969 saw the start of a long association with Finsbury Park. It received its TOPS number of 08873 in 1974. When the depot closed in the autumn of 1983, the loco was reallocated to Bounds Green. Transfer to Stratford came 3 years later but the loco spent most of it's time still at Bounds Green and the duties associated with the depot. Repainted in to Intercity livery, complete with yellow cab roof and Stratford Cockney Sparrow logos in 1987, the loco was displayed at the Bounds Green Open Day. A brief period of store came in 1993 but the loco was later reinstated. Continuing it's tour of London, the loco came under the command of Willesden in late 1993 however had moved up to Crewe Diesel by the spring of 1994. A career with RES followed with a repaint in to the Red/Grey livery and becoming a regular feature in Crewe Station shunting the once busy mail/parcel traffic. 

Following the purchase of RES by EWS and having been side-lined at Crewe DMD, the loco was eventually offered for sale and in 1998 became part of the RFS fleet. Resold again, 08873 joined Shunter Hire specialist RT Rail at the turn of the Millennium and spent a good period of time on hire at Crewe Carriage Sidings. Somewhat surprisingly, she was sold on once more in 2005 to Hunslet Engine Company/Andrew Barclay Locomotives. A full overhaul and repaint in to RES with Hunslet branding followed. During it's time with Hunslet it served at a good amount of locations including Trafford Park (for both FLT and Kellogg's traffic), Felixstowe FLT, Round Oak Steel Terminal (West Mids) and Hams Hall. 

The most significant hire of the loco was by Freightliner whom it spent most of it's time with. This was in part due to the dire availability of Freightliners own 'Gronks' at the time. 2008 was a particularly torrid time with FL's own 08891 having decided to give up the ghost in the early part of the year with engine issues at Maritime and was carted away for assessment/repair. 

To further add to the woes 08077 and 08575 were involved in a shunting mishap at Maritime in July 2008 which saw 08077 pushed right through the stop block and end up completely off the track. 08575 was mangled in the incident too and both were subsequently side-lined. For 08873, which at the time was working at Felixstowe North FLT, this prolonged it's hire with FL and further cemented it's unofficial position as their 'First Reserve'.

FL were down to six operational Gronks in 08530, 08531, 08585, 08624, 08691 and 08785 with six remaining duties (2x Felixstowe, 2x Southampton, 1x Tilbury and 1x Trafford Park). With usually one locomotive away for exam at LH Group, Barton-under-Needwood, the fleet was stretched without the hire in cover. 

Cover it would continue to provide, mostly at Southampton but also a couple of spells at Hams Hall. In 2017 she left Southampton for the final time, coming off hire and returned to Barton for repairs. The loco never received these repairs and over the next 3.5 years or so the loco was gradually stripped of all reusable parts. In June 2021 the loco was little more than a shell, even it's cab internals had been completely gutted. Late June she was transferred to Beaver Metals at Water Orton who made light work of disposing of this workhorse. 

R.I.P

08 Update

2017 has proved to be a busy year for the humble 08/09 Shunter with plenty of activity. Although the number remaining is nowhere near the amount that was produced, the figure remains fairly static with few being disposed off. This year has seen long term contract changes, location changes and even new shunter duties created. Below is a brief update on whats being going on...

Alstom

Alstom retain a number of 'Gronks' at their depots along the West Coast Mainline. Locations such as Glasgow Polmadie, Liverpool Edge Hill, Manchester Longsight, Wolverhampton Oxley and London Wembley all started the year with a Shunter requirement. All of Alstom's Gronks have received attention in recent times, with money spent on them to keep them going for years to come. Most of this work was undertaken at Arlington Fleet Services, Eastleigh Works and included a full overhaul and repaint. Alstom's locos carried a variety of liveries prior to overhaul including BR Express Parcels Blue (08721) BR Black (08454) BR Green (08696) and Virgin Trains Red/Black (08611). 08954 was overhauled at Longsight depot and repainted blue from Transrail Railfreight grey livery.

The current disposition of Alstom's Gronks is as below...

Location	Allocation
Ditton	08454, 08721
Glasgow Polmadie	08764, 08954
Manchester Longsight	08451
Wolverhampton, Oxley	08617
Wembley	08611, 08696
Eastleigh Works	08790, 08887

08721 08454 Alstom Widnes

08454 Alstom Widnes

The list above no longer includes Liverpool Edge Hill. In truth, for the past couple of years the 08 was little more than a spare part on the site, often only being moved to keep it in serviceable condition. In June 2017, Edge Hills final pilot 08454 was road transferred the short distance to the new Rail Technology Centre in Widnes. The new site has a contract to repaint all Virgin Pendolinos which are now due. Rather than receiving Virgin Colours, the Pendos will initially receive a neutral scheme prior to the awarding of the West Coast franchise. The Pendolinos are split in to 3 parts and placed on to the 3 roads of the shed. Surprisingly in August, 08454 was joined by 08721 from Longsight and it appears that for the foreseeable future the site will have 2 pilots.

08721 Heywood, East Lancashire Railway

Manchester Longsight is down to 1 pilot, with 08451, itself not long brought down from Polmadie, holding the fort. It is expected that this will be joined by 08790 once it is released from Eastleigh.

08790 and 08887 are both on repairs at Arlingtons. 08790 has received some attention to its radiator as well as its traction motors. The loco is the only of the fleet at the moment to have a slight deviation to its livery, this being a black bonnet roof in addition to BR Blue.
08887 has been onsite at Eastleigh since Mid 2016 when it arrived for generator repairs.

Freightliner

Freightliner continue to deploy 08's at their container terminals up and down the country. The Gronks are on long term hire from Porterbrook and receive repairs at the LH Group (Wabtec) Barton Under Needwood as and when required.

08785 Southampton Maritime

Location	Allocation
Felixstowe FLT	08531,08691
Southampton Maritime	08530,08624
Trafford Park FLT	08585
Barton Under Needwood	08785
Nemesis Burton (Stored)	08575, 08891

08571 08624 Southampton Maritime MD

08724 08530 Leeds Midland Road

A recent shuffling of the fleet has seen 08530 come off long term repairs and transferred to Southampton Maritime via Leeds Midland Road for tyre turning. This has joined 08624 'Rambo' ensuring there is a pilot for the servicing shed and a pilot for the container terminal.

08785 has been tripped to LH Group for some well earned TLC having put in a tremendous performance at Maritime during which all of the other Freightliner Gronks had visited LH group due to failure and repairs at some point. 

08530 Barton Under-Needwood

08531 Barton Under-Needwood

08585 'Vicky' Trafford Park Fueller

08624 'Rambo' Southampton Maritime

08691 Barton Under-Needwood

08785 Barton Under-Needwood

 

08891 Barton Under-Needwood

Long term stored 08575 and 08891 have been shifted the short distance from LH group to the Nemesis Rail site in Burton. It is unclear at the moment why this is, whether they have been sold on or for further storage. 

08575 Barton Under-Needwood

08575 was stood down after an incident also involving 08077 at Southampton Maritime which saw both Gronks go through a set of Buffer stops. 08077 has since been scrapped.

HN Rail/GBRf

GBRf own a small number of their own Gronks but in more recent times have hired in from their supplier of choice HN Rail. The GBRf/HN Rail combination has seen Gronks used at Cardiff Celsa, Garston Car Terminal, Immingham Docks. 

A rumoured new contract is to see 09106/09201 installed with lights and mainline equipment for the Doncaster area.... time will tell!

The requirement at Garston has been upped from 1 shunter to 2, with 08818 (fresh from overhaul) joining 08507 at the South Liverpool complex. Whether this remains a permanent 2 loco gig remains to be seen. 

08818 'Molly' Garston Car Terminal

08527 is used a Immingham Docks on a contract between GBRf and Puma Energy.

08527 leaving Allerton for attention at Barrow Hill before being redeployed at Immingham Docks.

Still the largest gig between the pair is the Celsa Steel Plant in Cardiff. Requiring at least 4 Gronks at any one time, currently the location is home to 08389 (Celsa 1) 08924 (Celsa 2) 08630 (Celsa 3) and non remote control 08904. The first 3 locos have been fitted with remote control equipment, with 08904 on site at the moment to act as the spare loco. This contract was gained from DB after they pulled out in 2010/2011 and had been run down by EWS/DB in the latter years. This was mainly down to a lack of local dedicated maintenance facilities which in turn busted many a Gronk, often leaving the site with 1 or no serviceable shunters. GB and HN Rail have transformed this, introducing overhauled locomotives and state of the art remote control technology, which unlike the EWS/DB variant, actually works reliably.

08389 (Celsa 1) Cardiff

08924 (Celsa 2) Cardiff

08630 'Celsa Endeavor' (Celsa 3) Cardiff

08904 Cardiff

RSS

08632 was moved to the Tata Steel Trostre site in Llanelli for hire via Runtech limited. This proved to be short lived however with RSS pulling out due to contractual issues. The loco has been returned to Wishaw where it is receiving some further attention prior to being released to Leeds Neville Hill. This will in turn allow 08405 to be moved to Wishaw for a repaint and some attention of its own.

08632 receiving attention at Wishaw

08480 and 08683 have in the past month taken over pilot duties at Norwich Crown Point from RMS locotech. 

East Midlands Trains

EMT currently employ Class 08's at Derby Etches Park (1) and Leeds Neville Hill (4) to assist with shunting operations. 08899 is based at Derby and 08525, 08690, 08908 and 08950 are based at Leeds Neville Hill. Of these, only 08525 is thought to be operational. 08690 and 08908 have been condemned for sometime visible from passing trains due to failures. 08950 is thought to have shifted cranks. As Neville Hill is both a EMT and Northern site, 08405 is on hire via RSS to Northern and assists EMT as and when required.

08417 08899 Derby

08525 Leeds Neville Hill

Arriva Traincare (Formerley LNWR)

Arriva Traincare operate sites at Bristol Barton Hill, Cambridge, Crewe, Eastleigh and Tyne Yard. Bristol, Crewe and Eastleigh all retain shunter duties at present.

Location	Allocation
Bristol Barton Hill	08516
Crewe LNWR	08868,09204
Eastleigh	08810,08442 (s), 08735(s)

At Bristol 08516 is kept busy as the sole occupant of the former EWS Mail depot.

08516 Bristol

At Crewe there is sufficient work for two Gronks with 08868 and 09204 employed here. Both carry Arriva Traincare Livery and apart from the plain yellow ends, look the business!

09204 Crewe

Eastleigh is home to 3 Class 08's at present with 08810 the depot pilot, 08442 in long term store and 08735 languishing on site despite being offered for sale last year by DB. It is unknown if it was sold and who its new owner may be.

The nose of 08810 just visible at the former Eastleigh TMD.

08735 'The Cement Mixer' awaits it fate at Eastleigh.

LH Group, Barton-under-Needwood

LH Group services in Barton-under-Needwood has for the past few years been one of the major shunter overhaul/repair centres. Now a part of the Wabtec Rail group, the company has customers such as Freightliner, GBRF and more recently East Midlands Trains, sending Class 08/09 shunters for attention. The company also receives a lot of the industrial classes of shunting locomotives so are kept busy!

I had several reasons for wanting to visit the site in Derbyshire. Besides the fact that I am a Gronk fan, it was the arrival of EMT 08690 at the end of January that made a visit a priority! Normally based at Leeds Neville Hill, its not exactly one of the easiest shunters to spot. Coupled to the fact that it carries a variation of Stagecoach EMT Livery, a livery that sits well on the 08 I might add, I knew I had to take this chance, this chance was Monday 2nd February 2015.

Also as mentioned above, this is the base were Freightliner's 0-6-0 fleet are maintained. Freightliner's fleet has struggled over the past few years, with availability on the floor in more recent times. Locations such as Felixstowe, Southampton Maritime and Trafford Park still have dedicated pilots, whilst locations such as Coatbridge FLT in Glasgow and Garston FLT have lost theirs. With Trafford Park being the only location named there that is 'local' to myself, it is quite rare for me to see a 'Green Team' 08 these days.

Listed as being on site that day from the FL fleet were 08530, 08575 and 08891. 08530 arrived here in January for a D exam, and unfortunately was tucked up inside the shed (doors closed) so was not viewable. 08575 arrived in 2014 and has joined long stored 08891 in the compound. 575 was involved in a shunting accident at Southampton a few years back, which also involved a Class 66 and 08077. The 08's were pushed through the buffer stops and 08077 never worked again. 08575 did see some use as the pilot but has been laid up for sometime now. 08077 was the spares donor at LH group after the accident and was scrapped on site last year. 08575 appears to have taken its place, although appears largely intact 6 months on. The same can not be said however for 08891, which has been robbed of parts and makes a sad sight. This loco is another reason for my visit, having a bit of a personal connection with it. For many years, it was based at Garston FLT in faded BR blue. Maintenance was done locally at Allerton TMD so I'm more than familiar with it. It was removed from Garston circa 2004 (replaced by 08624 for the record) for some major attention. Following a full overhaul and repaint in to Freightliner Green/Yellow it appeared to have a bright future ahead of it taking up residence at Southampton. Sadly, it was never the same and suffered reliability issues over the next couple of years. Eventually it was laid up at Maritime and transferred over to Barton in May 2008 for repairs to it's cylinder heads and gaskets amongst other things. Sadly the repairs have never happened and the loco is now one of the spares donors on site, it's future looking somewhat bleak.

Also onsite was GBRf's 08934 which had arrived for repairs from Cardiff Tidal in Summer 2014. The Cardiff job is a rather punishing one for the shunters and shifted cranks are a regular occurrence. Owned outright by GBRf, it carries what is a variation of BR green. At the time of my visit, the shunter was outside the shed having the finishing touches done to it. It was moved on to Whitemoor Yard, March just 3 days later, in turn releasing former Allerton Gronk 08925 to take on the Cardiff job.

Hunslet Engine Company had 08913 on site undergoing a major overhaul. The loco is in bits, with the empty frame sat in the yard whilst the interior components are no doubt being overhauled. The radiator nose end is sat on the floor next to the loco making an interesting sight. This loco carries Malcolm Rail livery, which consists of a yellow roof and a yellow/blue/green body. Despite being rather unusual, a far cry from the standard BR Blue painted enmass from the 70's, the livery actually looks quite good! The loco had arrived from Daventry after being replaced by DRS Class 37 'Super Shunters'.

Also from Hunslet is 08393 still carrying EWS livery. The loco was bought from the EMR Kingsbury scrapyard, initially for spares but was found to be in very good condition so is here for repairs. Not much appears to have happened so far and presumably with the works current workload, its fairly low down on the list of priorities.

All in all, a very productive visit.

Loco's on site that day included,

08393 - Hunslet - EWS livery 
08530 - Freightliner (inside shed)
08575 - Freightliner 
08596 - Wabtec black 
08690 - East Midland Trains 
08891 - Freightliner 08913 - Hunslet - Malcolm livery
08934 - GBRf - BR Green