The approaching train was hauled by a Class 25 diesel. Being as the windscreen was divided into sections of the same size and shape, this was one of the younger members of a class whose formal name had earlier been 'British Railways Type 2'.

Note the Train Reporting Code indicator, positioned above the windscreen, had been modified and now only showed two white circles. This display (a combination of three numerals and a letter, which identified an individual locomotive-hauled train, see s44032) had therefore become redundant by the date of this photograph.

On the right of the train were the now empty Rotherwood 'Down' Sidings; here electric locomotives had replaced diesel for the onward slog of freight trains along the climb westwards to Woodhead. The line closed during the year this photograph was take, although the sidings clearly still had a function as a diesel 'stabling point' (somewhere locomotives could be left until they were next required). Behind the train Rotherwood 'Up' Sidings were just visible.

The vehicle behind the Class 25 could potentially have been a passenger carriage.

Information from John Thickitt.