Anybody coming upon the following rambling in a random trawl among flickr uploads will think it’s in a language other than English! To those that know – this is for you. Following a recent flickr conversation with Edward Bather (Ace photos, check out his site!) concerning mutual observations and dates, I realised that my only memory of 40135, without looking anything up (age is the enemy!), was a fateful night of extreme cold at Walton Old Junction, two days before my daughter was born in November, 1983. I decided to get a more coherent picture of my experiences with this loco by the laborious process of reading my own notes! Bear in mind at this point that though I kept records of everything I did, apart from the thousands of passenger miles with class 40s, I worked with 144 of them, many of them more than once! I find the first record with 40135 to be a light engine movement from Guide Bridge Holding Sidings to Dewsnap sidings to drop someone off then Manchester Piccadilly (change ends) and stable on Longsight. A humble start. The second was an even shorter event! We got relieved on an ex Wath freight with a 76 at Godley Junction and blagged a lift with the (again) light engine 40135 to Guide Bridge! The third encounter didn’t involve riding on the loco but was curious in other respects! 9th October, 1979, I got a lift to Dewsnap sidings on 47446 and worked a class 8 train through Northwich Station to Sandbach Junction then propelled the train back into Northwich sidings. If it wasn’t written down, I’d have no memory of this! May have had a snooze in the brake van….. The fourth encounter sets the picture for most of my miles with this machine! A fairly standard ‘trip’ working for Guide Bridge that began at Dewsnap, went to Trafford Park past Reddish shed and the Fallowfield single line, next stop Glazebrook, back through Manchester Piccadilly to Longsight, take some vans into Mayfield (get released by the Mayfield pilot) and light engine back to Guide Bridge. Number five run is a simple light engine move to Edgeley Junction on the 15th December, 1979, to ‘get hold’ of a freightliner train, take it to Trafford Park FLT and stable the loco on Longsight. Run six does see us getting a little further afield on the 27th March, 1980. After the light engine move from Guide Bridge, we take a train from Godley Junction down to Apethorn Junction, Woodley Junction and through Stockport Tiviot Dale to Warrington Arpley, then the return working back over Stockport Viaduct to Dewsnap and light engine back to Guide Bridge. 8.75 miles or thereabouts is what run seven amounts to! At least it was ‘double headed’! A railway van in the early hours of a Sunday morning, 27th April, 1980, takes us out to ‘site’ to relieve the Saturday night train crews on a track relaying job, result – 40135 and 40137 back to Dewsnap from Cheadle Junction and ‘light’ (133 tonnes – light? We detached 40137 at Dewsnap) to Guide Bridge. Saturday night, 20th July, 1980, another engineering train and another short run provides encounter number eight (after a few pints in The Boundary – are you getting bored yet?) A ‘panel’ train, loco and brake van at one end, a bunch of flat bogie wagons – half loaded with concrete sleepers connected by 40 foot lengths of rail, the other half empty – and a brake van and loco at the other end, all vehicles between the locos unfitted (no driver controlled brakes) and a nightmare to drive! 40135 led the way out of Cabinside, opposite Guide Bridge, gingerly taking the train through Manchester Piccadilly and over the MSJA to Navigation Road where 40188, at the other end, took us past Skelton Junction to stop next to the Ingersoll Rand Works at Wythenshawe. There we sat while the track relaying process went on until our relief arrived in the van that would take us back to base! I may have had a snooze in the brake van….. 19th August, 1980. We finally break out of Lancashire and Cheshire on run number nine with a straightforward fully fitted class 6 from Guide Bridge Station to Sheffield Midland! Get on the footplate, have a brew and a natter, get off at Sheffield. Money for old rope. No wonder they brought in one man operation! I have to say here that when I got driving, working a freight train on your own for several hours was not as rewarding than the shared experience of having a workmate that could benefit from your knowledge. That’s how I learned much more than I did in the classroom. Rant over. Nearly a year was to pass before run number ten! The night before run ten was the 8th June, 1981, it was the same job as the following evening, but with 40009, scoring 31253 on 1M60 back to Manchester. Instead of going to bed during the day, I ‘bashed’ AC electrics between Crewe and Preston which included 81010 and

The electrode heater cartridges and their electrode sets made of stainless steel boards. The unit placed in the brown shower have less electrodes because it was for 220 volts, the units for 127 volts must have more electrodes with a half of distance between them. If the shower had heating too much even in the lower level, it was possible to take out some boards to decrease the device's power. In the right there is the electric switch in the device's head. The switch lever drives the energy to some boards or for the entire cartridge to control the heating levels. The two bars in the right side is the automatic switch, which turns on or off the device by the water flow. In the background the lower side of the head, with the giant screew which is the ground bar and also is for fixation of the heater chamber as well the water outlet bolter. The gray cylinder is a capacitor to avoid that the residual-current devices and the public transformers go mad when the shower is turned on... This kind of heater also doesn't work with brackish water and more careful were needed in its installation than an ordinary electric shower with coil heaters since an auxiliary equipment is required (and frequently forgot...), as well it is illegal in Brazil to have a total power in the house with a low power factor, so this shower didn't make a good career and was abandoned a few years after its release.