Classic Diesel Years – County Durham

Classic Diesel Years – County Durham

The book looks at the British Railways network in County Durham in the 1980s and early 1990s when a day spent on the main line would produce half a dozen diesel classes and a wide range of passenger and freight rolling stock. The author observes: ‘If some of the diesel classes pictured in this book are now a distant memory, at least on the main line, then so too are many of the railway settings.’ The East Coast Main Line was transformed by electrification in the 1990s, and the Tyne and Wear metro wires reached Sunderland in 2002. Elsewhere, resignalling schemes have done away with most of the mechanical boxes and semaphores, while the decline of heavy industry has brought the demise of many freight terminals.