59202 Milford Junction 18 July 1996

In the last of the weak afternoon sun, 59202 slowly passes Milford Junction on 18 July 1996 with a Gascoigne Wood to Drax Power Station coal train. Still less than a year old, the locomotive has yet to receive its Vale of White Horse nameplates. It had arrived at Hull Docks from Canada in August 1995, and would be named at Didcot Power Station on 28 September 1996. I didn't know it at the time, but this would turn out to be my most photographed member of the sub-class, probably because I deliberately sought it out in later years in view of its name. The Vale of White Horse being the area were I first took an active interest in railways in the early 1970s.