Peter Kerslake adds the details " This close view of the pioneer EM1 clearly shows how the buffers and drawgear were attached not to the locomotive body as was normal practice but formed part of the four wheel bogies instead, a feature which was not incorporated into the design of the later EM2 class, with their six wheel bogies.
By attaching the buffers and couplings to the bogies much of the stresses brought about by constant double heading and banking duties undertaken by the class in service on the Woodhead line was absorbed by the bogies rather than being transferred to the main body of the locomotive, both bogies being connected to each other by a flexilble and heavy duty coupling running centrally beneath the body and attatched to the inner face of each bogie.
26000 still carries her "Tommy" nameplates in this view, bestowed upon the locomotive at a ceremony at Liverpool Street station on the 30th June, 1952 following its return from service in Holland, but the plates were removed during the year of this view, namely 1968. "