Nomenclature of Diesel and Electric Locomotive Wheel arangements

[rodent279]

1 hour ago, kevinlms said:

Regarding the Western Class, since they were a specific loco generally built to service the Western Region, why were most of them actually built at Crewe?

30 at Swindon & 44 at Crewe. This is apparently different to the planned build of 35 at Swindon and 39 at Crewe.

So why were any built at Crewe and not all at Swindon, surely it's more efficient to set up one production line?

 

Was there any significant build quality issues, i.e. did either plant build superior locos to the other?

Was it because they wanted to get them into service as soon as possible, and there wasn't space for either a large enough single production line, or for two production lines at Swindon?

Or did someone simply want to compare costs between the two works?

[D826]

With regard to splitting the order for the 1000s JK Lewis "The Western's Hydraulics" says ; 1) Swindon was still building D800s  and distribution of work minimised delivery delay and preserved employment.  2) Crewe had a solid record of delivery on time to budget.

 

The high cost of the D800s is cited as being a special concern for the British Transport Commission.

 

Cheers.

 

Matt W

[EddieB]

On 24/01/2021 at 22:45, Jeremy C said:

The Industrial Railway Society uses a modified version of Whyte notation where the drive is internal, for example using chains, gears or electric motors, and there are no coupling rods. For example, a 4 wheel locomotive driven by chains on both axles is a 4w, and if it is only driven on one axle it is a 2w-2. This does lead to some more interesting designations such as DELTIC being listed as 6w-6w. I see from my 1976 copy of Industrial Locomotives that D601, then still extant at Barry, is also listed as 6w-6w instead of what I suppose should be 2w-2-2w-2w-2-2w. I don't think I have any of their publications that include a class 31. A class 08 is 0-6-0 because of the coupling rods.

Not any more.  Sensibly the continental notation has been adopted for many years, first appearing for ex-mainline locomotives in 1991 (9EL).