You are probably wondering why a 73 electro-diesel Locomotive has been included on a tribute site to slam door multiple units. Let me explain - on the 16th of April 2005 South West Trains brought 73109 out to mark the last day in its current livery. It peformed an all day diagram but it did not do it on its own. 421397 and 423481 also joined the party and the trio operated trips to Alton and Basingstoke. Sadly I was working in the morning so I could not get there in time for the Alton journey, but I managed to bag a ride to Basingstoke and back. Below are a few pics to mark a very special day.

73109 sits at Waterloo before heading to Basingstoke

73109 at Basingstoke shunting over to the sidings to let through trains get access to platform 1

73109 back at Waterloo preparing to head to Alton on the penultimate trip

It wasn’t just 73109 which did the hard work, the 2 MK1 units performed very well indeed, 3481 enters Clapham Junction after a trip from Alton