Decline
By 1986, only five of the original 512 locomotives had been withdrawn from service, all because of serious accident damage. However, with work for the class declining due to the introduction of new rolling stock, and spare parts becoming difficult to source, some inroads started being made.
The first locomotives to be targeted were the non-standard pilot batch of 20, now numbered 47401-47420. Three locomotives were withdrawn as life-expired in February 1986, and the remainder of the batch that had not recently been overhauled followed in the next two years. All 20 were withdrawn by 1992.
Meanwhile, BR drew up a 'hit-list' of locomotives for early withdrawal, mainly including those with non-standard electrical equipment, known as series parallel locomotives. In the outset, withdrawals were slow, mainly due to the surplus of spare parts and new flows of freight traffic which required extra locomotives; only 61 locomotives had been withdrawn by the end of 1992. However, with the introduction of new locomotives, the rate of withdrawal quickly rose, with 86 more 47s reaching the end of their lives in the next three years. With most of the non-standard locomotives withdrawn, the reduction of the fleet again proceeded more slowly. The privatisation of British Rail also produced new independent rail companies needing available traction until they could order new locomotives. From 1996 to 2006, an average of around fifteen locomotives per year were taken out of service.
During the decline in passenger work a number of locomotives were painted in "celebrity" colours, depicting various liveries that the type had carried during its history. This continued a tradition of painting 47s in unusual liveries, which dates back to 1977, when Stratford depot in East London painted two locomotives with huge Union Flags to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.
Read more about this topic: British Rail Class 47
Famous quotes containing the word decline:
“My opposition [to interviews] lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“The decline of the aperitif may well be one of the most depressing phenomena of our time.”
—Luis Buñuel (1900–1983)
“Where mass opinion dominates the government, there is a morbid derangement of the true functions of power. The derangement brings about the enfeeblement, verging on paralysis, of the capacity to govern. This breakdown in the constitutional order is the cause of the precipitate and catastrophic decline of Western society. It may, if it cannot be arrested and reversed, bring about the fall of the West.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)