The Class 27 stabled a mile south of Leicester station

This locomotive in green livery appeared in the sidings at Knighton Junction, a mile or so south of Leicester station, a couple of weeks ago.

Whatever call it is, it was not a familiar sight on English rails in my trainspotting days.

Thanks to some helpful people on Twitter I can tell you that it is a British Railway Class 27 originally known as D5410.

Rather wonderfully, it is owned by Sandwell MBC. You can read all about it on Wikipedia:

D5410 was built by BRCW as Works No DEL253 of 1962. It was allocated to Cricklewood East in August of that year, working Tilbury Boat trains and Cross-London freight services. After re-allocation to London (Midland) in 1965 and Nottingham Division in 1968, D5410 moved to Eastfield Depot in Glasgow in March 1969.

In fact all the Class 27s were based in Scotland in the days when I cared about such things, which is why I hardly saw them.

These new siding at Knighton Junction, incidentally, were put in to replace the ones removed from Market Harborough to allow the new car park to be built.

I can see myself spending the next week or more trying to get a better picture of it than this.