315807 at Bedford - 26 March 1981

As restrictions continue and we crawl on hands and knees towards various milestones, I have turned again to my archive. On previous occasions, I decided not to scan certain pictures because of quality, composition or lack of accompanying information. Over recent years, I have improved my editing techniques (you might not agree) and I can better recover some of my older images even if the composition is not always what I would accept today.

With the wires in place after the electrification from St Pancras, Class 315 emu 315807 was seen at Bedford early in the training programme. The Class 127 dmus which would be replaced could be seen at Bedford more than one year later. As I recall, the introduction into service of emus was delayed and the delay was exacerbated by ASLEF industrial action in 1982. A curiosity in this picture is the Tilbury blind displayed for this southbound run.

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