One of my favourite classes of loco, indeed it was one of the first Hornby loco's I ever owned, along with a 142 which came in the box with it, but that's another story.
Anyway, I was just reading the class47.co.uk pages and I can't help but feel that this class was jynxed somehow.
http://www.class47.co.uk/c47_feature_421.php
I am not sure if this level of accidents is normal for any class of loco but to me that seems to be an impressive list of accidents, many resulting in fatality and premature scrapping.
Infact several wrote themselves off before seeing a full year of service, and in the 1980's two locos wrote themselves off in two seperate accidents in two consecutive days?
If most classes of loco have such a colourful accident history does anyone know of similar pages? I found it a good read.