blue, red and white livery. The first locomotive in this livery was again 50023 Howe. The NSE livery had two versions; the original had upswept red, white and grey stripes at the ends, with white cab window surrounds; the revised livery introduced in 1988 had the red and white stripes continue to the body ends, with a blue cab surround. In the revised livery the blue became a darker shade. Towards the end of the 1980s, the fleet could be found mostly on the West of England route, as well as fast services from Paddington to Oxford. Some locomotives were also transferred to the civil engineers department to work maintenance and engineering trains. Around this time, the first locomotives were withdrawn, starting with 50011 Centurion in early 1987. This locomotive's nameplates were later transferred to 50040, which was previously named Leviathan. A further two locomotives, 50006 Neptune and 50014 Warspite were withdrawn in 1987, followed by a further five locomotives in 1988 (50010/13/22/38/47). In 1987, consideration was given to using the class on freight trains. To this end, 50049 "Defiance" was renumbered to 50149, equipped with modified Class 37, lower-geared bogies and outshopped in the new trainload grey livery with Railfreight General decals. It was based at Plymouth Laira depot, and tested on local china clay trains in Cornwall as well as heavy stone trains to London from Devon quarries. The project was, however, not an outstanding success and by 1989 the locomotive had been returned to its original identity. Ironically, the electronic anti-wheelslip equipment, with which the entire class had originally been built and which would have been key to the success of this experiment, had been removed during the refurbishment process. At the start of the 1990s, the reliability of the fleet became a problem again. By this time, the class was solely used on the West of England route, having been replaced on the Oxford route by Class 47/4 locomotives, displaced from Railfreight Distribution after the collapse of Speedlink in 1991. Arguably, the Class 50s were not suitable for the stop-start service pattern of Waterloo-Exeter services, nor to the extended single-line sections of this route, where a single locomotive failure could cause chaos. Therefore, the decision was taken to retire the remainder of the fleet, temporarily replacing them with Class 47/7 locomotives, which were in turn replaced by new diesel multiple units. From 1992, the Oxford route