The last 2 editions of Traction magazine have seen 2 letters re the local class 25 footex working I listed in my "Footex files" article published a few months ago. The letter in the very latest Traction adds some really interesting gen and it shows that you can’t beat old gen for stirring long lost memories of a real railway…

Anyway, here is a full report on the footex events of 050682 as remembered by myself with additional gen as supplied in the letters though I suggest you read "Traction" itself for the full story…

At that time I was living in the Springfield Road flats in Linslade with a birds eye view of a real railway both by day and night. Diesel hauled workings normally attracted my attention and after what seemed to be a lull in traffic (due cows on the line in the Old Linslade area, a common and real problem locally for the railway at the time) I heard and then saw the unique spectacle of 2 x 25 dragging a 40 on a long rake of Mk I’s on the up fast.

A 310 then passed on the DS so any hopes they were dragging were soon dispelled. With rare power going South, usual practise was for the locos to return Northbound an hour or so later having been shunt released at Euston or the train the 40 or whatever was hauling dumped in Wembley yard.

So an hour or so after the 25/40 combo passed (about 1400) I was about to leave the flat to hopefully phot the returning 25/40 when I paused as a thrashing small Sulzer could be heard on approach and I was totally gobsmacked on seeing another pair of 25’s dragging a 40 on another rake of Mk 1’s on the UF. I was also puzzled as to what these trains were as the football season was long over.

Down at the station, a 5 minute walk the usual suspects (Slapton ned, Gary 30A and a few others were hovering on the Dunstable platform near the bike sheds). They were very helpful in advising the numbers of the 25/40’s and how the second 40 was "definitely still doing something" and that they looked like football specials.

So in the hope of the 40’s returning, I camped out in the South Car Park, basic 110 camera ready for a phot. The anticipation of a hoped for event was huge, something the current WCML scene still generates on occasions, though today the gen is often more accurate thanks to the "logs" gen men. .

The anticipation after a further hour of little interest was fading fast then the loud approach of a 25 saw me phot 25054 and 206 (without 40133) heading North light engine. I hoped the second pair would soon return dragging the 40’s or whatever but it didn’t happen.

I returned home and it wasn’t until late the next afternoon that a whistle on the breeze announced the passing of a battered 40003 dragging 40133 North light engine presumably back to Crewe was viewed from my lounge window!. A massive working for a Sunday afternoon in June 1982

A week or so later the gen filtered through from local top man "Poker Dot" that the failed services had been footexs from "up North" that had both expired in the Bletchley area seeing Bletchley men rescue the failed 40’s with pairs of 25’s. The huge delays compounded by the bovine trespassers meant the hundred of kids aboard missed the England Scotland Schoolboy International at Wembley Stadium. You can only feel genuinely sorry for them and presumably such rare local WCML haulage could not console the vast majority of them. At least one of the trains did not call at Wembley Central for the game, due the late running and the trains went through to Euston, presumably for an early return home. The incidents generated, perhaps understandably, bad press nationally for the railway.

After assisting 40133 earlier, 25054 and 25206 return to Bletchley passing L.Buzzard station.

Proof just how short of AC electrics the WCML was at the time heres a view of 40167 returning North through Leighton on 040682 after working an additional freight South.

Footnote – Early 80’s Leighton saw a fair bit of 40 action with several visting a week on freight or especially 508 drags, though on an unexexpected basis but i never saw a 40 hauled "footex" locally again though!

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