British Rail Purfleet March 1986

Another vid from my early filming days now, Purfleet Station filmed on 19 march 1986. Here we see a mix of passenger & freight traffic with classes 08, 47, 56, 59 & 302s. The class 59's hadn't long been introduced (reason for my trip out) and you can see the GM techie guys in the rear cab of the loco. Note that when delivered the original four were all un-named. There was still a lot of oil traffic around then and Purfleet even had a Gronk out-stationed from Stratford to shunt rakes of wagons as seen here. The passenger service was in the hands of the long serving class 302 EMUs. If you liked the video please subscribe to my channel, there are lots more transport & quirky vids to upload!

[@TrainTrackTrav]

That is some stellar footage of days past. It's kinda sad to see how sterile railroading is today, both in the UK and here in the States. Makes one grateful for old VHS cameras and KZbin.

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

Thank you, i'm pleased my films bring happiness to others. I myself like looking at railways where-ever they are in the world, i have some Dutch & Thai railways films up live now.

[@kirkwitney2919]

Fantastic film, I stood on that balcony many times myself, seeing the class 59 stone train come in and shunting the tanks from station sidings brought back great memories, thank you. I was a resident signalman there from 85 to 87.

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

@@kirkwitney2919 my Dad's friend was a relief signalman on the LTS, Loren Field....... He was there this day....

[@kirkwitney2919]

@@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus Is Loren still with us. i think he must have been about 40 then

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

@@kirkwitney2919 good to know....he was involved with the RVP preservation group at the Great Central Railway as was my father.....

[@grahamgarnett4010]

Love these videos, you really got around back in the day. I wish I had taken more photos in the 70s.

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

Yes, i did travel well, work permitting! At least shift work gave me the bonus of days off in the week, much better for freight traffic!

[@benGBRf]

Great video. Did quite a bit of filming around Purfleet in 2017 when I lived near there. The contrast is huge

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

Yes, the area has been built up as industrial use declined. I used to drive the Yeoman stone trains down there in the mid to late 90s and it was in decline then.

[@robinpinnock2678]

Thanks for this - a real piece of history. I remember making a long cycle ride over to Purfleet on June 4th 1971 hoping to see some of this activity, only to find 08 3710 had derailed on one of the crossovers , and all trains had stopped while it was jacked up.

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

Ah, you have my kind of luck do you? lol...A great shame that was as this area was very busy with freight back in the 1970s, the passenger trains took second place on the Tilbury Loop. I used to live near Woodgrange Park with the Kentish Town line (as it was then, now the Gospel Oak line) at the bottom of the garden and it was always very busy with freight trains. Lots of 31's (inc Toffee Apple ones), 37's & 47's but in the evenings a pair of 25's ran light to the LTS but i never saw their return as i was in bed by then (school got in the way!)...happy days!

[@davidwolstenholme6413]

Great large logo 56 footage at the top of this brilliant video, nice one and thank you.

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

My pleasure......

[@jimdieseldawg3435]

Hi Soi. I'm glad you were out there filming the modern scene when I was too young to possess a video camera; your videos are not just nostalgic for me, they are also helping with my modelmaking of this period. Sir, thank you!

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

My pleasure.....it would seem my vids are usefull in so many ways......I was lucky back in 1985 to get an increase in my take home pay when i went on to night shift....i invested in a full E180 tape sized camera...on HP terms but well worth it.....

[@Mitch-Hendren]

I love the leyland national bus. one that didnt grow up to become a 'pacer' .. great filming as ever.

[@MetroTitanD78]

One of Grays finest

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

I forgot that was on there, another bit of bus history! I'm planning a bus upload soon, either Titans & Nationals around Upminster or maybe buses in Ilford or Romford around 98 time, keep an eye out.....

[@MetroTitanD78]

I used to live in Romford so anything bus or train related to that area is a bonus

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

That will be the bus upload then, keep an eye out....it may be tonight!!!

[@arnjeacock]

Do we know who filmed it.

[@colingarwood9971]

Having only just done some filming at Purfleet, i'm glad i stumbled across this film. Excellent and brings back memories.

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

Thank you....did you see much freight activity there?.....I imagine it's a lot quieter these days!

[@colingarwood9971]

Hi Soi, yes a lot quieter these days. Mostly containers, aggregates and cement. I used to work near Purfleet in the 70's and remember class 25's, 33's and 45's would occasionally turn up.

[@Martindyna]

Fantastic, so glad that you took the trouble to record this and numerous similar videos.

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

Thank you...... I was just filming for my own pleasure, and i'm pleased now that others enjoy them as well.....

[@eastlondon666]

Done most of my spotting on this line in the70s, can loads of unusual stuff pop up now and again, 52s, 33s, 03s, 09s, 40s, 45s, great memories, dead as a door nail now, such a shame.

[@annescholey6546]

Luck plays a part if you happened to be there at the time. This week 30yrs ago I had one shot of Stewart's Lane loco yard. Today it's all gone.

[@eastlondon666]

@@annescholey6546 such a shame, I would love to go spotting today having time now to do it but it must be so boring now. We loved doing all the main London stations, full of variety, I would fall asleep now lol.

[@EssexGayBoi]

Wow, yet another cracking vid Soi, thank you for sharing these, keep them coming, am revelling in the nostalgia

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

Thank you! There's plenty more in the archives so i'll keep you busy for a while yet! lol...

[@EssexGayBoi]

Good man, that's what I like to hear haha :D

[@andrewcrisp9700]

Another great video. Thanks The railway cottages behind the box are now all demolished.

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

As is the box! Not to mention a lot of the industry that was around there then......

[@annescholey6546]

They blitzed Beaver Bottom at Ashford for the Eurostar block.

[@bigboyardeegamer2290]

Yeah when they weren't demolished me and my mates went in there the police got us 😂😂😂 they let us out with a warning 😂😂😂

[@rogerclark5869]

Another great video.

[@davidwolstenholme6413]

Excellent video my friend.

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

Thank you.....

[@EM-yk1dw]

Nice one again Soi

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

Thank you, i aim to please!

[@markdunwell3288]

A very good and interesting video Soi. I loved the grids and the 47,marvellous. And then that awful shed, at least the wagons were BRITISH. I can't get over the height of the pantographs on those units. They look very tall. I love the Euston - Liverpool over head line ELECTRIFICATION masts. PROPER ELECTRIFICATION full portals. Thank you Soi another great video 👍👍👍👍👍🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️🚅🚄

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

The overheads are quite high here because of the level crossing, so the pantographs were a full extension. I don't class the 59s as sheds, they are way better than 66's, not as noisey in the cabs and much better pulling power! I managed to drive all 15 of them in my time on the footplate in the late 1990s..... Although i prefered class 60s more.....

[@westerleighwerek1493]

Loved 86', took the old units for granted, more interested getting round Stratford depot!

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

My Dad had friends there as well, so getting round the TMD or the DRS was easy as well! I do have some film of locos shunting around the TMD, i'll see aboiut getting it up!

[@MetroTitanD78]

Most of this activity was gone by the early 90s sadly and the area where the oil tankers were being shunted from was long abandoned when I used to visit the area around 94 onwards.

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

I used to sign the road down there in the 90s, as far as Thames Haven. Mostly stone trains but the odd car or steel train as well. The Foster Yeoman terminal had stone and next door had cars and steel but yes there was a general run down feel to the place.....

[@Gideonsmythe]

Pre-Misery Line days here. The trains and the signalling started to show their age towards the end of the 80s which was when the problems started to escalate. Not helped by Network South East's policy of ensuring that LTS were always at the wrong end of rolling stock cascades.

[@johnchurch4705]

Lucky the LTS line was never turned into a guided busway..

[@alseeineye]

- they used to call the LTS the ‘misery line’ if you remember

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

Oh yes, i remember those days well!

[@avocet1989]

Another excellent video,very enjoyable,reminds me how much I miss the railway of the 1980s !.What do you use to digitise your video tapes ?,the quality is very good,when I transfer my tapes from the 1980s I seem to lose a lot of the original quality.

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

Hi there, i had a camera that took E180 tapes so to start with everything went straight to a big tape and wasn't copied over from a smaller tape format (that kept the quality up to start with). When DVD came along i got a DVD recorder and copied across in SP mode onto DVD discs. In SP mode you got less on the disc but again kept the quality up. And about a year ago i got a free programme from the net (called X-Media Recode) where i can convert DVD's to MP4 format, again with no loss of quality. I edit these with a programme i got from ebay (cost about £2!) called Avidemux which is easy to use and very handy. All my films are now on DVD and MP4 formats, the tapes have de-graded and have been disposed of. Anything you may have took yourself i would advise to get on modern media and more than one copy, i have the MP4's on several hard-drives, what i have is irreplaceable so needs back-ups! Let me know if i can help with anything, all the bes,t SB

[@avocet1989]

Thanks for your detailed reply,very interesting to read how you have done it.Over the years I have transferred most of mine to MP4s and AVIs using various video capture devices and a computer but generally I have always been unhappy with the loss of quality,must be to do with the analogue to digital conversion,I bought a video grabber box that records straight from the vcr to a usb stick,so that it removes the need to record to my pc,that gives much better quality but causes interference lines on the recording !. Even though my VHS recordings are 30 years and upwards older they still look good when played from a vcr onto the tv.I never considered a DVD recorder !,I think I will look for one on ebay and give it a go.I hope you have plenty more videos to upload as I really enjoy them.I wish now that I had taken my camera with me on many more of my rail trips all over the county but at the time I used to get fed-up with the wrong type of attention cameras attracted in the 1980s,with them still being fairly uncommon at the time,the usual ones were 'are you from the telly ?','are you the news ?' and of course the attention seeking idiots who just had to be on camera !.

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

And the weight! A Panasonic M1 is what i started with and 3 spare (heavy) batteries. I would go out all day filming buses, tubes & trains and would sometimes need all 4! But i captured some great stuff, never enough, there was always something else i should have done (Concorde for instance but wasn't so 'plane crazy' 20/30 years ago) but i did work on the transport (bus/tube/main line) so shift work got in the way as well not to mention the overtime when i was on the footplate and we were short of drivers. I never had too much agro back in the 80s and 90s with the camera, i get more nowdays and i use a small hand held job! Quality is better now of course but you go with the times, i started with cine film in 84 but it was very expensive, time consuming to edit & watch and silent! A VHS tape cost the same as a 5 min cine film but i nowe had 3 hours to play with and sound! So i filmed trains properly, the whole length of them (unless the batt gave out unexpectedly ect) where's with cine you had to be more chosey as to what to film. Never had to worry with the video cam. Yes, if you can get your tapes first of all copied across to a DVD disc (DVD+RW a re-writable disc, handy in case of errors, wipe it and start again. A +R disc is write once so if you muck it up you have to bin it and start again), i have a Sony recorder and plug the video machine in via a scart lead. Then you can edit as you go just by pausing on the DVD machine to take out unwanted bits. Once it's on disc, keep that even if you transfer to MP4, belt & braces is important if you value your films. Once on DVD disc you can use the programmes i recommend to save as MP4. The quality is supurb if you started with a good copy, i loose a bit on my You-tube uploads but the MP4 is great! Have fun, SB

[@avocet1989]

The first video I took was with a camera I was lent in 1984,I think it was a Panasonic or a Sony,separate camera and recorder,the recorder was almost as big as a domestic vcr and was very heavy !,the company that let me borrow it repeatedly told me how expensive it was and to be 'very,very careful with it',consequently I didn't use it much in case I broke it or got it stolen ! but it did give me the taste for video.My first camera was a Ferguson VHS-C,an ex-rental I bought from Radio Rentals in 1987 which wasn't great but it was the best I could afford at the time.The 30 minute tapes were a pain and often ran out at the worst moment.In 1989 I bought a Ferguson full size VHS camcorder,again from Radio Rentals but this time it was a brand new one that I managed to get quite a good discount on.The quality of the video was much,much better but I was always envious of my mate's Panasonic camera which was way better than mine ! but Panasonics were out of my price range at that time.I've had a quick look for DVD recorders on ebay,some people want some stupid money for some of them,but I have got my eye on a couple so we will see.Thankyou for taking the time to help me,you have opened my eyes to a way of transfering the tapes that I had never considered.Best wishes,Paul Clark (avocet1989).

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

No worries Paul, what we (and others have done) have is priceless for enthusiast in general and us in particular and must be saved. If i can help anyone to do that then i'm doing some good! I hope all goes well and we get to see some of your vids up on KZbin! Let me know if you do, ta Rich

[@Keithbarber]

On the 302s, why was first class in the driver trailers in some units, but in centre trailers in other units?

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

Some were refurb units, some not, still in original layout.

[@Keithbarber]

@@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus ok thanks for the information

[@hornet1068]

Is t just me or did railways in the 80's always look messy? Although no Buddleia i could spot. Got to love the way the guy got off the 08 in the station. Health & Safety would have a fit if they saw that nowadays.

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

There wasn't as much money in those days. Sincce' privitisation' we have direct government control and money is sloshing around to the point of excess! So, yes more can be spent on keeping things looking tidy. I enjoyed looking at a nice clean Potters Bar station while waiting for non existing Thameslink trains last year. I suppose they could say they had no late runnning trains.....as they had no trains running!!!

[@rocksreynolds3642]

I enjoyed watching this, especially the Gronk action! How did the molasses tank get to be dumped there? People moan about trains being bland now but back in the eighties I only remember seeing Leyland National buses on the road, no variation at all!

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

The tank probably had mechanical issues, possible a hot axle box or some other fault and was knocked out of the consist of a train. They would either be fixed by a travelling fitter or hopefully be taken to a repair facility, assuming it didn't just get overlooked and forgotten about. There is a 'Sahrk' ballast brake van dumped at Shenfield. It was knocked out of a ballast train because of a hot box in BR days. It is still there, on its own bit of track and no-one will admit to ownership as there's a big bill to remove it!

[@rocksreynolds3642]

@@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus Amazing. My father in law was a scrap estimator before retirement, and had more than one incidence of quoting to remove rakes of wagons still on sections of track that had long been disconnected from any running lines.

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

There was (and perhaps still is) a long line of Cartics dumped at Ripple Lane West Yard on their own bit of line, unconnected at either end and no one willing to claim ownership! After BR was split up there were all these unwanted wagons (and some coaches) laying where they were dumped for one reason or another, over-looked by the system. As no one wanted them for use and there was a cost to dispose of them no company took ownership, it probably falls to Network Rail to dispose of them if they want their land cleared! AH, the 'joys' of privitisation!

[@mirvids5036]

The Foster Yeoman "59s" were the beginning of the end for British designed and built locos. I remember seeing them around the time of your vid and found them intriguing. Nowadays nearly all locos are imported. What a disgrace. Be aware that all the railway privatisation was due to EU requirements. Had British Rail still existed and was now receiving all the money the franchisers do in subsidies, including all the "per train" freight subsidies that Stobart, Freightliner, DB etc. get, the network would be amazing. Alas...

[@doveronefoxtrot4417]

Agreed. I wish we still had BR, and not the EU. Never mind though, we'll be getting another referendum soon, that's on the cards.

[@mirvids5036]

What will that achieve ? The result of the first one hasn't even been implemented. Remainers would defy a second if that went against them too. Ground hog day . . . .

[@andrewchaston503]

Class 56. From Romania were an indication of the decline. So well remember spotting at Colchester and looking very closely at body panels on the 56s off the ferry at Harwich. Poor cannot describe it. Total disgrace more like.

[@Martindyna]

Surely the EU stipulation that track signals etc. be split from the Train operators could have been achieved without privatisation the way it was done in the UK. I wonder how the French complied, I don't suppose for one minute that they buy all their trains from abroad having allowed their manufacturing base be purchased by foreign companies! Do their Train operators pay their shareholders millions in dividends like they do over here? Of course Eurostar did recently replace their trains with ones manufactured by Siemens which I understand didn't go down too well in France. Perhaps I should have read this document before making my comment ! `Situation and Problems of Railway Industry in Europe' by Philippe Domergue and Emile Quinet

[@mirvids5036]

@@andrewchaston503 That's not totally accurate. We had plenty of capability at that time but not immediate capacity. Electroputere (can't quite remember) were contracted for the first batch. We (Britain) had used Romania to help their economy too, as we did back when BAC were building the 1-11 aircraft. They built several of those too.

[@MrGriser]

Didn't 308's and 312's operate along there at that time?

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

No, at this time it was still all 302s & 308s. The 310s came along about 1989 onwards. I have a vid taken in 88 where i filmed from Barking to Shoeburyness and there was none around then.

[@AndreiTupolev]

Nice of the signalman to let you up onto his balcony. Those propelling moves look rather inconvenient, wrong line through the station then onto the down line, must have occupied both lines for a while.

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

The bobby was a friend of my father's so acess was no problem. All the shunt moves were within station limits so quite easy to perform. In those days the off peak passenger service was every half hour so at worst only another freight working may have been delyed. There was an oil terminal on the Up side of the London end of the station and the trains from where-ever (Thames Haven? and/or places further afield) were too long to set back and berth the train in one move so they used sidings on the Down side at the Country end of the station. All gone now though, the box, the outbased shunter and the oil terminal.

[@trainrover]

What might've replaced the demolitions...apartment blocks?

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

Pretty much yes! Lots of industrial sites are being demolished and housing built in their place.

[@MetroTitanD78]

To this day the off-peak service is still every 30minutes although these days barely anything happens in the area.

[@johnchurch4705]

@@trainrover they still have bulk terminals off the Tilbury loop, mostly car storage now.

[@s125ish]

Class 59 in 1986 ?

[@westerleighwerek1493]

Yeh, on test Feb 86 so first month in service!

[@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus]

This is whyi was at Purfleet that day, the signalman friend of my Dad's had let us know they were out and running, so this might be some of the earliest video film of them!

[@s125ish]

I thought they were introduced early 90s . Thanks

[@westerleighwerek1493]

@@s125ish That was the 59 1's!

[@antonygardiner2513]

They were purchased for the Foster Yeoman company saw all 4 in and around Westbury in 86/87 as it was a change to see new locos

[@petergoggin476]

Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr. Hitler, If You Think Were On The ?Run, BromLey Trains, Freight, Regards, Peter J. Goggin, East Sussex!