BR Class 37 - No 37264 - Travelling Alongside Pickering Beck - North Yorkshire Moors Railway [4K]

The British Railways Modernisation Plan of the 1950s identified a need for a powerful 1,500-2,000hp diesel, designated Type 3. The English Electric company’s design was commissioned and the first examples built in 1959. Later renumbered as the Class 37, the type became a jack-of-all-trades, seen hauling everything from heavy freight to express passenger services and over 300 were built. Nicknamed “tractors” for their noisy engines, a few are still in service on the British railway network despite their age, though most have now retired.

37264 (originally numbered D6964) was built at Vulcan Foundry in Newton-le-Willows in 1965 and served in South Yorkshire and East Anglia before transferring to Cardiff in 1988 and finishing her nearly 35-year career there in 1999

No. 37264 arrived at the NYMR in 2010 and has been in regular use since. She is currently painted in the 1980s "Large Logo" version of the BR rail blue livery.