"In response to a question by Modern Railways a few weeks later, BREL Managing Director Ian Gardiner argued that the 'super-overhaul' process could essentially be described as remanufacture..."
The archetypal look of the Class 50, post refurbishment. 50040 Leviathan heads for the South West, at Wychbold, in June 1982.
Believe it or not, it’s now a whacking 40 years since the hushed and experimental beginnings of the Class 50 refurbishment programme. For fans of the type, the scheme’s raft of modifications brought a buzz of excitement, with a new sound, a new look, and a drastic reduction in Class 47 stand-ins on ‘Hoover’ diagrams.
Indeed, it's fair to assume that the greater proportion of today's extant Fifties owe their very survival, in part, to BREL Doncaster’s four-year run of mega-overhauls which gutted and rebuilt every last member of the class. But for British Rail, the programme was part of a much wider quest to stem the rapidly diminishing reliability of the diesel fleet…