Railway Herald
The body of Class 76 No. 76050 lies grounded in the weeds at Reddish MPD Manchester on Sunday 19th March 1978. Delivered new to Reddish from the nearby ex LNER Gorton Works in April 1952 as No. E26038 she became No. 76038 under the TOPS renumbering scheme. An interesting event occurred in October 1976 when she swapped identities with fellow Class 76 No. 76050. I believe the reason this was done was to group all the dual braked and multiple working equipped locos at the start of the class and the remaining vacuum only locos together at the end of the number sequence. In total 8 Class 76s swapped identities with each other during this time and I can think of no other reason for this but I would be happy to be proved wrong. With the general run down in traffic on the Woodhead Route No. 76050 was withdrawn in February 1977 and grounded in the shed yard so that her bogies could be re-used and in fact became one of the last of the class to be scrapped during February 1984 by C F Booth of Rotherham.
Bob Woolnough
