LMS: Birmingham New Street to Tamworth
LMS: Nuneaton to Birmingham New Street

Water Orton Station: mrwo1842

An unidentified British Railways Class 08 diesel electric shunting locomotive comes off the Kingsbury branch with a short ballast train. Brian Hughes, who supplied the photograph and was a 'Bobby' at Water Orton, writes 'I never saw a shunter this far up the main line. The yard shunter would sometimes pull a train from the yards towards the station....stop tantalising close by the station...just far enough so the number could not read and then push the train back into the yards'. The pioneer locomotive, No 13000, was built in 1952 although it did not enter service until 1953. Production continued until 1962 with a total of nine hundred and ninety-six locomotives being produced, making it the most numerous of all British locomotive classes. The Class 08 design was based on the LMS 12033 series design. There were also twenty-six of the near identical but higher- geared Class 09, and a further one hundred and seventy-one similar locomotives fitted with different engines and transmissions which together brought the total number of outwardly similar machines to one thousand one hundred and ninety-three locomotives. As the standard British Railways general purpose diesel shunter, almost any duty requiring shunting would involve a Class 08 and therefore the class became a familiar sight at many major stations and freight yards.

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