31301 Railfreight Red-Stripe
Developed from the large logo scheme, when the original Railfreight grey livery was launched on 58001 in December 1982 it was lifted by the addition of a red bufferbeam and solebars. However, when the paintjob was first rolled out on the Class 31s as they left Doncaster after Heavy General Overhaul from March 1985 only the red bufferbeams were carried over, the red lower body band not being introduced until January 1987 on 31188. Over the next 13 months, 36 other ‘refurbished’ machines were outshopped by the ‘Plant’ in the same ‘red stripe’ scheme with Bescot’s 31301 re-entering traffic after its makeover in June 1987. This had been new as D5834 to 41A Tinsley in March 1962 but spent most of the 1980s yo-yoing between the Eastern and London Midland Regions. When the locomotive fleets were divided into sectorised pools in the second half of that decade 31301 was initially allocated to departmental work, later joining Stratford FAGS aggregate pool, before returning to infrastructure work in the early 1990s. This became restricted to weekend work from 1992 along with several periods of store and around three years later it worked for the last time. A potential reprieve came in September 1999 when it was sold to Fragonset with the intention of re-instating it to traffic. Unfortunately this never took place and after hanging on for over a decade it met its fate at CF Booth, Rotherham, in February 2011.