Railfreight 37's on Parcels or Engineers trains?

[50035 Ark Royal]

Hi does anybody know. have any evidence wether the Railfreight 37/5's ever worked parcels or enginnering trains? or were they exclusively freight?
thanks

[champion]

Not an expert here ian but would say parcels a no no,but engineers a yes.
richard.

[m8internet]

Hi does anybody know. have any evidence wether the Railfreight 37/5's ever worked parcels or enginnering trains? or were they exclusively freight?

37510 and 37685, both Inverness based worked quite a few Departmental (Engineers) trains in Scotland whilst in INTERCITY livery (as it was a common pool of Class 37 locos)

Also another possibility would be any of the other FEPE/FEPM/FCPM coded locos whilst operating in Scotland
As Eastfield was closing the locos were transferred to Motherwell, but it had so many locos it could not cope so were based at Immingham and rotated
The Coal locos were then outbased at Ayr, otherwise they were free for virtually anything else
The Class 37/0 locos were prioritised for Freight and InterCity
The 37/5 and 37/7 locos could then be seen on anything else, including Departmental work, especially at weekends
A Platform 5 book for the period 1991 to 1994 should help determine which locos these were, but local celebrities were 37692 and 37694 (which carried the same nameplate, causing some confusion after the nameplates were moved between them in July 1993)

Parcels use was very rare, priority would normally be a Class 47/4
I've had a look to see if there are any records of Class 37 on parcels during the early 1990s, nothing, but have a look and see if you can find any

[50035 Ark Royal]

Hi guys that is what i thought tbh and despite searching 37's in Ralfreight or Later liveries are exceptionally rare on parcels trains.In fact i can not find a pic of a single one on the web.
A shame realy as i would have liked a tractor, so now i am looking at Sulzer either the faithful Cromptons or shock horror the ubiquitous duff aka strumming devise, but at least the model good.
Well the Bacchy one is, not so sure about Vi trains but off topic i know but i like the original generator 401 in large logo livery and i did not loathe the original 20 as i did other members of the class as they made a different noise and some how had more charachter.
So unless sombody can find, or has a photo in thier collection of pics a 37 hauling parcles after br blue then it looks like theese types unless i keep the EE flag flying and opt for another of Vulcan's finest.

[m8internet]

You would quite easily get a Class 37 on a passenger train or Engineer train but less likely on a Parcels, as explained below

If a loco failed on a passenger train and a Class 37 was available, then it would be used, hence why this was such a common sight
This would be temporary until a replacement suitable loco was available or to the end of the day
As the majority of Class 37 locos did not have ETH their main use was non-passenger trains
However, the Class 37/5 and Class 37/7 locos have ballast, making them more suitable for heavy freight trains, hence they would rarely be used on Engineers trains

With regards to Parcel trains, if a loco failed then a Class 37 may have hauled the striken train to a suitable location
However, the Class 37 would then be removed and returned to its previous duty
Parcel trains normally had a lot of recovery time, this would normally allow for a replacement to be provided
Hence why there are more photos of such trains with two Class 47 on them

However, I do remember on North Wales in the late 1980s a daily Holyhead parcels, hauled by a Class 33/0
I am also pretty sure that some in the East Midlands were hauled by Class 31/4 locos, hence why they carried InterCity Mainline livery (dual use InterCity and Parcels)

[PTmodeller]

There's no additional ballast in a 37/5 m8, it's just got the alternator and new bogies over a /0.

[m8internet]

Apologies the 37/5 do not have ballast, it was all the other differences including gearing and tractive effort (but at InterCity we referred to it as the ballast effect, as the 37/5 was in effect dead weight or ballast!)
Hence why every effort was made to avoid mixing unrefurbished with refurbished (37505, 37510 and 37685 being the three refurbished locos)
When they did the refurbished one would snatch against the unrefurbished, which then rippled down all the coaches

As a result the 37/0 would be accelerating slightly faster
If leading this resulted in it dragging the 37/5
If behind this resulted in it pushing the 37/5

When these locos were on sleepers it was horrendous, almost always causing the generator van to trip (on one such journey I had to keep walking back to the generator van after each station stop to turn it back on again)

[numbnuts846]

I know of a few times when 37's have worked parcels/mail from plymouth due to n/a of 47 and 67 do have some pics some place will have a look

[m8internet]

Very possible to have a 37/4 on parcels duties in EWS days
However, OP is referring to Railfreight period