D6713 BR Green

Never produced before as a standard Accurascale release and consequently one of the most asked for livery variations, D6713 in as-delivered British Railways green will bring English Electric reliability and power to any early 1960s layout. Completed at Vulcan Foundry in March 1961 and delivered to 30A Stratford, the East London depot’s new charge was immediately put into service supplementing its Type 4 cousins, the D200s (Class 40s) on passenger services on both main lines out of Liverpool Street. The EE machines became particularly associated with the Cambridge line, which they monopolised for almost two decades, the Harwich ‘boat trains’ and express services to Clacton, which did not fully transfer over to the famed AM9 (Class 309) EMUs until the middle of 1963. Equally at home on secondary services, parcels and freight, across East Anglia and the rest of the Eastern Region, the arrival of ever increasing numbers of Class 47s on the Great Eastern in the late 1960s saw this particular example transferred to 41A Sheffield Darnell in May 1968.

                  The next 15 years of corporate era conformity saw it renumbered 37013 and mostly touring the north east with allocations to Gateshead, Healey Mills and Thornaby with the odd spells at March and even at Eastfield. However, for the latter part of its career it will forever be associated with Tinsley, which gave the battered blue Class 37 the unofficial name Vampire (after the de Havilland jet) in November 1989. It was finally repainted in the triple grey Railfreight scheme after an intermediate repair at Doncaster in November 1991 and was back at Stratford for infrastructure duties in October 1993, which also saw it employed on unit substitutions between Norwich and Great Yarmouth/Lowestoft the following year. In January 1996 it followed 37109 having its nose door area reskinned flush to remove draughts and was outshopped in Mainline Freight aircraft blue at the same time. Unfortunately it lost an argument with a ballast train at Temple Mills in October 1999 and was stored. It was cut up at EMR Kingsbury in February 2007.