Class 76 (EM1)
I find early electric locomotives fascinating, I think because they are often so quirky in their appearance. This may be because the later classes 81 to 86, and to a degree 87 all look so similar, but also there is a sense that electric vehicles are very modern, and the fact that some electric locomotives were around at the end of the nineteenth century just feels bizarre. The class 76 is not that old by a long way, but it was originally designed by the LNER before WW2. A prototype, later called Tommy, was built in 1941, but the revised production model was built between 1950 and 1953. The larger, but similar class 77 (EM2) was built from 1953 to 1954, but all seven of them were with drawn in 1968, and sold to Ditch railways in 1969. They were built for the Woodhead line, running between Wath and Sheffield, across the Pennines to Manchester. The LNER plan was to run them into Manchester Central, but with nationalisation, it made more sense to use Manchester London Road (now Piccadilly)...