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information and answers to frequently asked questions

what's the site about, and how did it begin?

The site is dedicated to news reports and photographs of the British-built class 47 Sulzer engined locomotives.

My first internet access was in late 1999 and I was bemused to find a lack of current class 47 information anywhere on the web. Nick Scott (who now assists with fleet lists and advance tour info) had been putting together some class 47 news online during the early months of 1999 whilst at university but had ceased doing so by the time I got onto the internet for the first time.

Inspired by the Class 37 Loco Group's workings news website, I set out to put together a small free no-frills web page of workings of the Blackpool-Portsmouth 47 hauled working. It was the C37LG who also gave me my first web site link and probably therefore the first site visitors.
I would have liked the site to be as detailed as the 37 website, but I quite simply don't have enough time. There is now (as I type this in 2007) another site that now details the history of 47's (fleetnumbers and names etc) and others with large selections of photographs. I personally consider it to be a pity that I was not approached to perhaps join forces with one of the other sites to make one very large, very detailed and very unbeatable site, rather than make people have to look in many places at once for news - but never mind. Thankyou to everybody who continues to support me in keeping everybody else up to date with current class 47 news.

It was in April 2001 that I moved the site from Expage.com to Geocities.com (part of Yahoo), and the first photo's appeared on the site, of 47773 at Kingussie, and 47292 and 47488 top'n'tailing a Norwich-Great Yarmouth/Lowestoft diagram.

In late summer 2001 the site moved to the professional webspace provider of Supaweb and the address of class47list.co.uk after problems with Geocities free site being unreliable with high numbers of people viewing the site.
The site moved back to Geocities in October 2002, in the height of class 47 popularity in 2001 this websites news page had reached 1300 visits in one day.

This site has covered the end of class 47 hauled trains on First Great Western, Scotrail, Virgin Cross Country, Virgin West Coast, EWS freight and parcels ervices, and seen the introduction of Cotswold Rail and the movement of loco's to Cotswold, DRS, Fragonset, Riviera Trains, and the West Coast Railway Company.
Over the period many loco's have been withdrawn and scrapped, or converted into class 57's fitted with General Motors engines.

A boost in page views and myself having a bit more time for updates coincided with moving the site again to the professional half of Yahoo (the paid for bit!) and the move to the sulzerpower.com address, to go with my email address and to distinguish that this is not a class 57 website(!).

who are you?

A railway enthusiast keen on gaining and sharing information on my favourite class of locomotive! I have worked in the railway industry for the past three years. Although my railway career doesn't in any way involve 47's, I have been involved in many ways with Compass Tours since Kevin Melia began planning the idea in 2002. Between 2002 and 2007 I also designed and edited the Compass Tours website although this will be changing with the introduction of credit card bookings (something that I cannot put together).
I also have a BTEC National Diploma in Design & Photography, so I at least try to make things look interesting!

can I contribute/ how do I contribute?

Yes you can and you are welcome to email me about class 47's, I'll reply to most questions.
Please have a look at the contributions and contact details page before sending me sightings and photographs though, the guidelines set out on that page benefit you: the viewer and myself: the editor.

can I send you photographs?

Photographs will be kept by me, the website editor for possible future use on this website, and possibly the Compass Tours website. The photographs will be used for no other purposes that are not related to my websites.
Photographs sent to me will be cropped or changed in size to fit the page they are being used on, and also I occasionally change brightness and contrast of photo's received - due to brightness/contrast of some peoples computers being different, and everybodys vision being different. I judge my computer and my eyesight to be an average when using photographic contributions and sometimes ammend photo's accordingly.
Your photo's that are used on my website remain your own copyright, and your name will be mentioned under your own photographs.

why haven't you used my contributions?

I put a large amount of my own spare time into updating this website and I attempt to see the updating of the site as 'fun' and enjoyable, thus things can sometimes seem slightly unprofessional.
I will however endeavour to use all information/photographs (where I see as relevant to class 47's) when I have time. Amounts of information are occasionally overlooked when editing time runs out (due to personal life/working life reasons). Your contributions are always saved and are usually used eventually if I haven't used them within a few days (even known to have been added several years later!).

what is the name of the site?

It is and always has been 'The Class 47 List', the very first page was named plainly 'Class 47', which led to a page called 'The List' - leading to the simple name. The site is often referred to as Sulzerpower due to the site address name and for links and publicity this is an acceptable name.

can I use information from The Class 47 List for my own website/magazine/video and for personal reference?

Of course you can, thats what the site is here for BUT if using information from the site it must be credited to THE CLASS 47 LIST WEBSITE (any pages designated at part of THE CLASS 47 LIST state so at the foot of every web page) is Copyright © 2000-2005 by the editor: Shaun C, and contributors. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/). Any information used/edited MUST state The Class 47 List as its original source. This license agreement applies to ALL pages designated as a part of THE CLASS 47 LIST website.

what websites do you look at?

North Wales Coast, and End of the Line. I personally do not like 'fotopic' style websites - mostly as they only show one image at a time. The other reason is that a large number of people with 'exclusive' photographs don't send them in to websites any more with the explosion in popularity of 'fotopic' websites, they just put them on their own fotopic site where they will be seen by only a few handfuls of people, compared to an average of around 700 enthusiasts per day (2005 statistics) on the Class 47 List.
My own philosophy and the entire reason that this Class 47 List website exists is that I believe that if you know something you should share it with others so that they can share the news (and pass it on - remembering to quote the source of the news though), or just so that you can show off that you know something. The Class 47 List is an established base for class 47 news is now and has been for a long time the best place to pass on recent sightings and to look up recent information. I also regularly pass other random bits of news on to many other areas in transport journalism, including trams and buses (it's that male 'statistic instinct', isn't it?!). If your own philosophies are different then I respect that and wish you the best of luck in your own websites.
You will have noticed though, after my moans about 'fotopic' - that some parts of the Class 47 List's photo galleries are on 'fotopic', this was from a time when I thought it was a good idea(!) - but please note that I still have every respect for anybody who puts the large amount of effort required into producing a 'fotopic' site (just please do share the news around to us 'list keepers' every now and again, and don't forget that along with mentioning your name in my 'thanks' column - I will also list your 'fotopic' website if you ask).

1st published by sulzerpower.com 28/11/05, updated 09/06/07 and is a copyright © of THE CLASS 47 LIST 2000-2007, see index page for full copyright details.