Today we said farewell to Trevor Dean, who died suddenly on the 26th October. Trevor devoted his life to trains, and became involved in railway preservation in the 70′s, partly through his job at British Steel where he persuaded the management to donate various locos and wagons to preservation groups. In the 1980′s he built up a collection of shunters and later mainline locos, culminating with his pride and joy 40013 (D213).
Trevor was therefore one of the first generation of mainline diesel preservationists, when the purchase of a loco from the BR tender list was an act of faith and a leap into the unknown. Saving 40013 was no exception, as BR were intent on scrapping the last of the fleet and had already moved it to Vic Berry’s scrapyard before putting it on the open tender list after a lot of pressure.
The loco was moved to the South Yorkshire Railway Museum, where I remember seeing the incongruous sight of a Class 40 trapped between lines of shunters, and a smiling Trevor scraping away at the buffers. Amazing to think how far it has come since those days, and a credit to Trevor, Shaun, Andrew and many others over the years.
We will sorely miss Trevor at Barrow Hill, as he always liked to pop round to our corner to egg us on, and we enjoyed his banter in the messroom, usually about his latest cops at Doncaster and the ongoing storyline on Coro. He seemed very happy with the way things had worked out, and in his shy and modest way, he was so proud of 40013.
I am saddened to read of Trevor Deans death.
I knew his for several years in the late 70′s – mid 80′s as a member of the Doncaster based “Pennine Railway Society”.
His loco 40013 will remain though as a living memorial to a friendly & now much missed person.