Class 159s: 30 Years' Service

Class 159s: 30 Years’ Service; Mark V. Pike; Britain’s Railways Series, Vol 47

By the late 1980s, the Class 50 and Class 47 locomotives working Network SouthEast’s West of England line from London Waterloo to Salisbury and Exeter St Davids were in dire need of replacement. Although a study favoured electrification of the line or the introduction of new DMUs, it proved fortuitous that surplus Class 158s from a Regional Railways order were made available.

Rebuilt by Babcock Rail in Rosyth dockyard with First Class accommodation and other refinements, they were designated Class 159, and were launched at Salisbury by representatives of Network SouthEast in 1992. The trains finally entered full service in July 1993 and, since then, have given reliable service over the years, latterly for South West Trains and currently for South Western Railway. At the 1992 launch, one of the Network SouthEast representatives announced that the Class 159s would be in service for the next 25 to 30 years.

Almost in the blink of an eye, 2023 marks their 30th anniversary, and the lack of plans to replace them in the immediate future means that they will live on for some years to come. This book contains over 230 images of Class 159s at work at a variety of picturesque locations.

Author - Mark V. Pike

96 pages