Incidentally by coincidence the two 50s you do show (assuming D4xx is, aside from D400/50050, always equivalent to 500xx)
Yes. I tend to file/refer to my photo's etc by the locos originally allocated number (BR locos that is), as many types/classes of interest to me were withdrawn long before TOPS, and others (eg 37's - a fav type of mine from 30A days) have been renumbered so many times, I lost the plot long ago, so tend to refer to all by their Dxxxx number.
007 of course carried the name 'Hercules' before it became 'Sir Edward Elgar', although I don't now remember the reason for the renaming (sure someone will know?), albeit the latter in human form was a very fine composer IMHO!
My first encounter with the class was long before they were named. Some of them were reliable, others fell woefully short of that phrase, but as Taunton rightly comments on/alludes to, individual loco performance was often down to the particular power unit (the lump) sitting between the cabs, which were often switched around after failures or during refits. May have commented before about '33s lack of top end speed (in my experience), yet I have heard others who, at the time, swore by that particular loco! A very fickle subject perhaps?
Here' 037 on the blocks at Waterloo in March '88.
Recollection is that the stabling of the Waterloo-Exeter stock shifted to Laira from Newton Abbot late in 1980 (or possibly early in 1981). It may have been tied in to the switch to class 50 + Mark II
I believe you are correct. I do vaguely remember diagramming sets from/to NA, but LA became the norm, whereby each night the 9 car MK2 sets were spread between LA, Salisbury and Eastleigh for stabling, with the odd one up at Clapham on Sat nights for the first down train on Sun's if my memory is correct.