700143 at Bedford - 10 October 2020

I don't know what the Class 700 Desiro City emu is like for performance and popularity but, aesthetically, it brings to the railways the sort of tedious blandness brought to London buses by the ostensible all red policy - from which the LT class appears to be exempt. However, there is a case for recording their service especially at a station where, at a much younger age, I saw the smoky characterful Class 127 Derby dmus replaced by first Class 317 and then a Class 319 emus.

Bedford station itself has changed substantially over the decades, first moving north from its Midland Road incarnation and then developing to accommodate a service level we did not even dream of in dmu days. This view, in fact, looks across platform 1A at which Class 230 continues to elude me. What is rather puzzling is the huge sooty or oily smudge spreading back along the base of the DMCO.

TZ70_P1030001E