Details of 37215’s workings for BR and in preservation can be found via the links to the right including photographic galleries showing the loco at work during each of these periods in its history.
37215 was built by English Electric at the famous Vulcan Foundry, Newton le Willows, Lancashire, in late 1963. It was delivered to British Railways’ Landore depot in Swansea (code 87E) on the 1st January 1964 and spent 3 years in South Wales before being transferred to the North Eastern Region at Healey Mills depot, near Wakefield (code 55C) in October 1967 where it worked throughout the south Yorkshire and Humberside area and across the Pennines to Manchester and Lancashire. The loco remained based on the Eastern Region moving first to Tinsley, Sheffield, in October 1971 then on to Stratford in east London in September 1973 where it stayed for 9 years working throughout East Anglia on both freight and passenger turns. It moved back to Tinsley in 1982 and saw regular use on summer Saturday passenger trains to Blackpool and Scarborough amongst other places.
Moving on to Immingham in 1987 preceded a short return to Stratford in 1988 and a move back to South Wales later that same year as part of BR’s sectorisation process. After an initial allocation to the Civil Engineer’s pool of locos, 37215 was allocated to the Freight Petroleum sector based at Cardiff Canton depot, from where it worked oil trains across South Wales and the South West until taken out of use in 1992 and sent for storage and component recovery at Inverness from where it was purchased by the Group and transported by road to Toddington in 1994.
Information on the history of 37215 has been compiled from many sources with the help of people too many to name individually, but to who we are most grateful. However special mention must be made of the Class 37 Locomotive Group for the use of information from their impressive website and similarly to The 1980’s Timewarp site.
Hopefully, this may jog your memory and encourage you to get that old spotting book, haulage log or photographs from your collection. Any information you have, no matter how small in relation to 37215, will be gratefully appreciated and go towards enhancing our knowledge. If you have anything of interest, go to the Contact Us page.
