47973 Gloucester 17 September 1989

One of the more striking liveries applied to a Class 47 was the maroon colour scheme acquired by 47973 Midland Counties Railway 150 1839-1989 in 1989 to commemorate that railway company's anniversary. Upon being repainted it was numbered 97561, but this was changed to 47973 in July 1989. It is seen here at the Gloucester Rail Day on 17 September 1989. The hand painted BR double arrow logo definitely looks a little non-standard and amateurish! Like most photographers in the 1980s and 1990s, I used transparency film for all serious work, as almost without exception colour negative film was of very poor quality. However, this is taken on the short lived Kodak Ektar 25 negative film, an unbelievably sharp and grain free film, which at ISO 25 was also ridiculously slow! Due to this slow speed and the fact that at the time an image on negative film was of no practical use for projection or publication, my experiment was confined to just a couple of films.