English Electric Class 40, England

Staying with the theme of EEs: a Wallace Trickett painting of an English Electric Class 40 emerging from Lindal tunnel near Ulverston in Lancashire (later Cumbria upon boundary changes) in 1962 with an ex London Euston to Barrow in Furness service which arrived around 7pm, six days a week .

These were the days when electrification was slowly making inroads on the main network. The Class 40 would likely have been attached at Crewe taking over from either a Britannia Class steam loco or 8F, though sometimes engines worked right through from London for the 6 hour journey. Once electrification reached Crewe the service was reduced to less than 5 hours with new Class 81, 82, 83 and 84 electric locomotives. The Class 40 were built from 1958 to the early 1960s, the majority being constructed at Vulcan Foundry, Newton Le Willows. There were several variations on the design with some having a split headcode box, some a single centralised one and others, like that shown, had none. They were the main versatile type 4 loco for British Railways until the introduction of the Brush Class 47 in 1962. 

The Class 40 had a English Electric 16SVT MkII prime mover rated at 2,000 bhp, and a 1-Co-Co-1 axle arrangement; 200 Type 4 were built, of which 6 survive in preservation in the UK.