While it is perhaps impossible to produce a definitive history of the Class 47 in one volume this book gets close to achieving such an ambition. The Brush Type 4 (later Class 47/48) was the single largest type of main-line diesel-electric locomotive to be constructed by British Railways with 512 being built at Crewe Works & at Brushs Falcon Works at Loughborough between introduction in 1962 & the end of production five years later. Allocated to all BR regions with the exception of the Southern the class was to see widespread use on a great variety of traffic from top-link passenger expresses to more mundane freight workings. Over the 50 years since the types introduction the class has been subject to much modification & a great variety of livery has been carried particularly in the years since Sectorisation & Privatisation. Up to 1986 only five examples of the class had been withdrawn all the result of accident damage but from the end of that decade & especially since Privatisation & the arrival of the now-ubiquitous Class 66 there has been a slow but inexorable decline in the classs numbers although a quantity of both Class 47 & modified Class 57 types remain in main-line service. A significant number are also now entering preservation. This book marks the 50th anniversary of the class & is the result of many years of detailed research in the archives rewriting much of the accepted wisdom of the types history.