Yes they did if they were working one of the Peterborough to Kings Cross or vice versa commuter trains before the line was electrified. There were also Kings Cross to Cambridge loco hauled services that may have been class 47 hauled on occasions (though I cannot remember when that service stopped).
IIRC a few longer distance East Coast trains also called there such as the London to Cleethorpes services and the York semi fasts. It was a long time ago when I travelled on these services whenever something more interesting than a class 47 turned up on them. So I cannot say for definite whether any of the trains I mentioned still ran in 1986/7.
My first recollections of rail interest as a kid was back in the 1960s when my grandmother lived in a prefab virtually next to Laira Depot. Lots of withdrawn locos parked up next to the path past the site of the station that used to be there. My home backed onto the disused Turnchapel branch and I used to regularly walk or cycle the line past Oreston station as far as the missing swing bridge over Hooe Lake. My mother used to take me on the occasional DMU journey to Tavistock North until the line closed but all I remember of that is the long climb back up to the station to get the train back to Plymouth.
In March 1967, at the age of 7, my mum took my brother and I for a ride from Plymouth to Cardiff on a footex. I assume it was a Western that hauled the train and I wish I could find out the details of the route (alleged to have used the line around the back of Exeter Saint Davids station and around Saint Phillips Marsh and the Rhubarb curve). I have recollections of sitting in the train but nowt else.
My mother took me to an infants school near to Plymouth's Friary station. I remember peering through the gap in the houses to watch the locos trundling off on their freights up to Exeter Riverside and beyond. I used to gaze longingly at the station wishing I could one day catch a train there (after many attempts I did manage it on a railtour that ran into the arrival platform road and not just stop under the road bridge).
Then a bit later on, when I was old enough to catch the school bus the five miles to school I used to occasionally see the freights trundling along the Plymstock Junction and Cattewater branches behind the 03s that Laira had allocated for the job (managed to get a charter train along those routes too eventually - a dubious move or two filled in the gaps).
My other grandmother lived in South Wales in a village near Pontypridd. Christmases were spent there walking the paths up the hillside that crossed the railway line from the village to the Merthyr line. This was in the days of the Aust Ferry (sadly my father didn't use the motorail shuttle through the tunnel) with it's turntable and two wooden planks to allow cars on and off. The route to my grandmother's house took in views of the main line at Magor and the Fright line to Machen and Bedwas. On one occasion a fright was passed with a class 37 at the helm by a level crossing. I asked my dad to stop so I could photograph it but he refused. Cheers dad.
As soon as I was old enough I used to take a 116 to Radyr and Cardiff Central to view the trains. Class 37s were my interest at the time (until I moved to London in my late teens for my first job and discovered class 40s on the overnights out of the Cross). To this day it is still a thrill to travel by train up the remaining South Wales Valleys lines even though most of the industrial interest has disappeared as has the rows of class 37s parked up at Radyr and Canton.
No dodgy fisher girls to distract me back in the day. A bit too young to appreciate them then. I made up for it later. :roll:
.........(me too, 
)
from the early 80's) 
