50011 Oxford 17 January 1987

With the temperature well below freezing, and the tracks still covered with the snow which had fallen three days previously, 50011 Centurion leaves Oxford station on 17 January 1987 with the 1F35 14:00 Oxford to Paddington Network SouthEast service. Centurion had only a little over a month left in traffic when this picture was taken, being withdrawn on 24 February, and therefore becoming the first Class 50 to be withdrawn from service. This is the final time that I photographed it. Prominent in the foreground are the two sidings used to store the occasional loco and DMUs, and which are amazingly still in situ, and still seeing occasional use. The same cannot be said for the sidings to the right, which were lifted in the late 1990s, and turned into a car park.