Swindon Works, March 23rd 1980
A view in the main erecting shop featuring 25191, 31154, 31124 and an unknown Class 08, March 23rd, 1980.

At the beginning of 1980 a continuing shortage of locomotives, partly caused by a backlog of repairs at the main workshops, led to Swindon Works receiving unclassified repairs for locomotive types it had not dealt with before. On March 9th collision damaged 31124 & 31154 were moved from Doncaster to Swindon. Likewise 25191 and 25236 were also received for repairs.

Nationwide during March approximately six hundred locomotives were awaiting attention of which only one third (about 160) were out of traffic for scheduled repair. For the Class 25's fifty eight were laid up, the Class 31's had thirty out of traffic, whilst for the Class 47's one out of every five machines was awaiting some sort of attention. Eight Class 25's had been out of traffic for at least three months (25035/42, 25113/147/177/191, 25234/252), obviously the aforementioned move of 25191 to Swindon was a start in repairing these bad ordered machines. To provide Swindon with a source of spares 25111/147/252 were withdrawn during March and consigned there (25111 was the first to arrive on May 6th), not surprisingly two of these machines were in the batch long overdue for repairs. By month end 25188, 25218/221 had also been received by Swindon for repairs. 25218 had received a crushed cab in a shunting incident at Stonebridge Park on March 19th.


31124/54 were received by Swindon for repairs, having initially been sent to Doncaster for repairs.

Locomotives on Works this day were:
03152
D3489 'Colonel Tomline'
08006*/087*, 08110*/114/169, 08258/259, 08354/396/399, 08411/418/431/456/482, 08614/645/649/652/665/676/698, 08724/774/792, 08848
25191, 25236
31124/154
* = withdrawn

Also present were eight four car Southern Region Class 411 (4CEP's) emu's in various states of repair and thirty five dmu vehicles undergoing repair, along with Class 205 Hampshire Unit 1105.

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