47050 Charlbury 15 May 1988

Running over 40 minutes late 47050 arrives at Charlbury station with the 14:00 Paddington to Hereford on 15 May 1988, the first train of the day over the line on a Sunday at this time. There had obviously been a problem with the train's original loco, as I had earlier seen 47050 heading south at Charlbury with empty ballast wagons from the engineering possession at Ascott-under-Wychwood. So presumably it replaced the errant train loco at either Didcot or Oxford. Non ETH locos were very rare on passenger trains on the Cotswold Line, and I certainly don't ever remember seeing another Railfreight liveried example being used. Note that Charlbury's notoriously short platform was just being lengthened and the car park extended.