"If the 310s had a last-minute claim to fame in the West Midlands, it was that they brought down the curtain on slam-door operation within the Central Trains fleet."
310113 off duty at Wolverhampton on 8th July 1999.
Many of today’s most nostalgically-appealing diesel and electric types attracted little attention in their time, and they certainly didn’t inhabit the “celebrity” category. One of the surprises I’ve had in the course of posting on Twitter, has been the reaction to images of Class 310s. These clanking sparkies may not have turned many heads as they ebbed away their final year with Central Trains, but they definitely don’t go short of applause twenty years on.
In this post I’m summarising the final year the Class 310s spent with Central Trains – working out of New Street station, where they’d been an everyday sight since their introduction by British Rail nearly three and a half decades earlier.