Modernisation Plan Diesels

[Fat Controller]

Gents

 

What trains did Type 2s work?

 

I'm aware of light passenger services, having ridden behind them in Scotland and on the Cambrian, where they seemed quite suitable, in a steam-age sort of way, and Kings Cross suburban (pathetically poor acceleration on suburban work, and "out of breath" trying to be a buffet car express to Cambridge, I do remember).

 

Engineer's trains on the LMR.

 

But, these hundreds of locos must have done more than that ....... Did they work in pairs, or just go slowly? Where?

 

Kevin

 

PS: I also remember being a bit go smacked by how crude the cab of a Class 31 was. By comparison, SR diesels and electrics felt quite "up market".

The 24s, and more noticeably, the 25s seemed to go round in pairs on the Midland Region, on everything from passenger trains (notably the Cambrian) to heavy freight trains. The sort of jobs that the WR might have used Hymeks or EEType 3s on would have a brace of Type 2s on the LMR. This did have the advantage of more brake-force; no small thing if you've about a thousand tons of unfitted freight behind.

Sheffield Division seemed to use double-headed Brush Type 2s on heavy freights, but elsewhere they plodded on as single-headers. They were fairly powerful haulers (after re-engining, they were really Type 3s), but woeful at acceleration. I was quite fond of them when they hauled the Portsmouth trains from Bristol, as they made for prolonged farewells on the platform; they'd be doing not much more than walking pace leaving the platform.

[Baby Deltic]

Sounds like 'The Trials and the Triumph' by Tom Greaves - a very readable and informative book; also containing some nice photographs.  He seems to think quite highly of the Brush Tye 2s, despite what more 'copper capped' members may think of them!    As far as I know, they were well enough regarded on their native turf.

It is Tom Greaves. History has been unfairly critical of many pilot scheme locomotives. The 'successful' Brush Type 2's which had be re-engined in their entirity. Had there not been so many of them, they might have been long extinct. The refurbished Baby Deltics were the best type 2's working out of KX in my opinion, although they were obvious candidates for withdrawal being only a ten strong class with a non-standard power unit.

[rockershovel]

I'd take issue with the suggestion that "no-one foresaw the implosion in the oil price". I'm in the oil industry and it has been widely predicted for quite some time. The problem has been to predict it within a sufficiently accurate range, which has clearly not been achieved. The other problem is that it is, for obvious reasons, extremely difficult to persuade companies to predict "we will not survive, although others may" and act upon that prediction.

[The Stationmaster]

I'll put forward that the most useful tool in the Type 2 basket was the Class 26/27 especially the uprated version - okay my viewpoint is perhaps skewed by there concentration on the ScR however they were in general from the start a reliable type - better than the Class 24/25's which suffered from amongst other things in the early days from premature engine wear caused by the bodyside clean air filters not doing the job - BRCW of course used oil wetted cant rail level filters from the start.  Combining the reliabilty of a proven engine builder in Sulzer / Vickers Armstrong and some half decent electrics and control gear from Crompron Parkinson and GEC made them good from day one.  Power wise I still maintain they did the job more than adequately when they were kept on the traffic for which they were intended - typically that of a class 4MT (Why Mike, did the WR expect the same performance from a type 2 when used to replace the workings for a type 3) ? As was previously mentioned the type 2's where just half a type 4 and when doubled up were more than able on type 4 diagrams - the Scottish Region allocated 26s initially going on to the Edinburgh-Aberdeen's double headed and worked well until replaced by the overweight slugs known as EE Type 4. The ScR made them a great tool for the Edinburgh-Glasgow service achieving timings and speeds that even today's multiple units struggle to eclipse.  They surely must get the prize? 

Bob,  I think the Western basically got what it was given in order to replace the Hymeks and of course some of the Type 2s it received were actually replacing Type 2s on duties which the D63XX had performed perfectly adequately (when they were actually working).  The problem really was that the Hymeks had been a very effective Type 3 and in reality all that could sensibly have replaced them was the EE Type 3s (Class 37) but the WR surplus - due to traffic decline - was being rapidly reallocated off the Region to places where effective freight locos were needed..

 

I agree with you absolutely about the BRCW locos - far better than the Derby design and i'd forgotten the very telling point you make about engine wear which was a problem right from the start with the original batch and i don't think was ever properly solved.

Sounds like 'The Trials and the Triumph' by Tom Greaves - a very readable and informative book; also containing some nice photographs.  He seems to think quite highly of the Brush Tye 2s, despite what more 'copper capped' members may think of them!    As far as I know, they were well enough regarded on their native turf.

 

It's a long time since I last saw Tom and I don't know if he's still around although I did have a 'brief' (in his dictionary) chat with him shortly after Alec Swain's death when we were trying to get in touch with various people who had known Alec on BR (hopefully Tom was in contact with some of them but alas he'd lost touch).  Obviously one's views of what the Brush locos could manage depends on what you experienced them doing or trying to do and as i said I think they weren't bad as ECS pilots at Paddington but we'd found them to be rubbish on the freight work they tried to do on my patch and they were far from impressive on loco hauled passenger trains where they came over as distinctly underpowered. 

[slilley]

One thing that should not be forgotten, and which has not been mentioned here is the reasons behind the Pilot Scheme being abandoned.

 

"However, in an effort to speed up modernisation and so improve the BTC’s deteriorating financial position, the Pilot Scheme was replaced on 23 May 1957 by a new policy to replace steam on an area by area basis. Under the new policy, orders already placed for locomotives under the Pilot Scheme were unaffected, but would now be augmented by new orders for the mass production of various types without any period of evaluation having taken place." This is from Class 47 50 Years of Locomotive History. The railways were losing money at an alarming rate and increased modernisation was seen as the way of producing a more efficient railway much quicker. When the decision was made, we were just coming out of the financial turmoil caused by Suez, and the levels of Government spending there had been previously were seen as unsustainable.

[jonny777]

Yes, and this is the most interesting decision because it was the most influential on what happened in the following ten years.

 

Someone must have decided that by "modernisation" they meant dieselisation, because no attempt seems to have been made to speed up the construction of longer wheelbase and fully fitted goods vehicles for instance, or make rapid improvements to the passenger facilities at stations or up the passenger comfort spec on dmus and emus, etc,.

 

If they thought that simply replacing the steam loco at the front with a diesel would turn the losses into profit; they were very much mistaken, as can be seen by the financial figures for the next 10-15 years.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Going back a little further, the Railway Executive's development programme, written in early 1953, was for some £500m. The top three items were:

Electrification 32% (of total amount)

Rationalisation and modernisation of freight terminals and marshalling yards 20%

Major running line improvements 12%

 

Only mention of diesels is the introduction of rail-cars 3.4% (ie £17m). Some £40m was planned for helicopter terminals and services!

[New Haven Neil]

Having a fair bit of experience with Mirrlees engines makes me think a bit about appropriateness.  In marine use (as alternator engines) these were fantastically reliable, the only failures I ever heard about were due to governor failure.  Which was not a Mirrlees part.

 

This use, which was one of their primary design objectives (small vessel main engines being another) was of course at constant revolutions (in the case of alternators - it governs the AC frequency) and mostly so in the case of say a trawler engine.  Putting the same prime mover in an environment in which it frequently changed revolutions at high loads and also got the living daylights rattled out of it in a rail borne vehicle, might not have been such a good idea.  Hence the entablature failures which ended their time inside of Brush 2's.

 

So, I wonder - did any of the engine manufacturers ever consider designing a prime mover specifically for locomotives, from first principles?  I was thinking maybe the Sulzer LDA's were, not sure. 

 

The Brush 2 was held as useless on Tyneside by enginemen I knew - due to it's inability to get any adhesion in the wet.

 

As for the NBL/MAN engines, I recall reading somewhere that they were made in imperial measurements converted from metric drawings, as NBL had no metric measuring equipment.  The writer was casting aspersions as to just how accurate the conversion was....

[Bert Cheese]

The Southern seems to have emerged from all this relatively well off?

 

No doubt the success of early mass electrification played a huge part, and none of the early/disastrous offerings of the modernisation  plan were really inflicted on the area to any degree.

Somehow classes 33,71* & 73 were built to SR spec and were/are all highly regarded, without undergoing the major changes some other classes have endured to remain useful.

 

*Rather a shame the 71's were withdrawn through lack of work...and we don't talk about the 74's in these parts (not mod-plan locos anyway)

[AberdeenBill]

So after all this interesting debate, de we have any nominations (with brief reasons) for the absolute worst design of modernization-plan diesel?    Class 14, 17, 21, 28 or... ?

 

Bill

[uax6]

I don't think it can the Co-Bo, as I'm sure that I've read somewhere that it rode extremely well, and at one point BR were investigating re-engining them with something, cough, more reliable, as the electrical side of them was deemed to be good.

 

Andy G

[Bert Cheese]

So after all this interesting debate, de we have any nominations (with brief reasons) for the absolute worst design of modernization-plan diesel?    Class 14, 17, 21, 28 or... ?

 

Bill

I'd have to nominate the D600 Warships for numerous reasons...even the WR didn't want them and quickly banished them to the wastelands of Cornwall!

 

I still rather like the look of them though, a pity we haven't got any proper NBL survivors left today.

[Rivercider]

There have been a lot of mentions of hindsight, and whether BR should have better predicted traffic levels when ordering new locos.

Now this is all before I was born so I had a look on Wikipaedia (I know, I know) to look at line closures.

 

Between 1950 and 1955 fourteen lines closed to traffic completely, while another twenty eight either closed to passenger or freight traffic.

Added to that there were obviously more that were already planned to close, or where consultation for the withdrawal of passenger or freight traffic was already underway.  This had been an escalation of closures since the war.  

 

It would seem to me that in 1955 it was clear that the requirement for small locos for branch line and light duties needed careful analysis.

I know Beeching hastened the closures but even by 1955 it should have been obvious that much work for them was being lost.

 

cheers

[Nearholmer]

Bill

 

I think I will deliberately start a right old set to with my nomination for the worst, which is ....... Class 55, The Deltics.

 

Yes, I know that they were (against all engineering odds and logic) reliable, and that they were jolly exciting, but how on earth can a class of 22 locomotives, each of which had two, super-sophisticated engines, be considered a good idea, when analysed coolly?!

 

I shudder to think what the unit cost per mile in traffic of the Deltics must have been, taking capital and maintenance together.

 

So, Class 55. Glorious, but insane.

 

A sort of railway 'Charge of The Light Brigade'.

 

Kevin

[asmay2002]

One of the big changes came about as a result of the 1955 ASLEF strike.  Many rail freight customers shifted to road and never went back.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

 

Bill

 

I think I will deliberately start a right old set to with my nomination for the worst, which is ....... Class 55, The Deltics.

 

Yes, I know that they were (against all engineering odds and logic) reliable, and that they were jolly exciting, but how on earth can a class of 22 locomotives, each of which had two, super-sophisticated engines, be considered a good idea, when analysed coolly?!

 

I shudder to think what the unit cost per mile in traffic of the Deltics must have been, taking capital and maintenance together.

 

So, Class 55. Glorious, but insane.

 

A sort of railway 'Charge of The Light Brigade'.

 

Kevin

 

Oh Kevin, oh Kevin.

Sometimes the heart has to rule the head.....

[DavidLong]

Bill

 

I think I will deliberately start a right old set to with my nomination for the worst, which is ....... Class 55, The Deltics.

 

Yes, I know that they were (against all engineering odds and logic) reliable, and that they were jolly exciting, but how on earth can a class of 22 locomotives, each of which had two, super-sophisticated engines, be considered a good idea, when analysed coolly?!

 

I shudder to think what the unit cost per mile in traffic of the Deltics must have been, taking capital and maintenance together.

 

So, Class 55. Glorious, but insane.

 

A sort of railway 'Charge of The Light Brigade'.

 

Kevin

Get hold of a copy of Gerry Fiennes 'I tried to run a railway' for the full argument as to why he, as GM of the Eastern Region, decided that the Deltics were exactly what the ECML needed at that particular time.

 

And anyway, hang on, we haven't got around to putting the boot into Type 3s and Type 4s and you've jumped to Type 5s!

 

David

[rockershovel]

Speaking as someone whose views regarding diesel traction were soured irreversibly by a very trying period as a commuter on tne ECML immediately prior to electrification - unreliable locos hauling ageing coaching stock - it's rather satisfying to read a thread in which people who knew them well, at first hand, criticise them..

[Clive Mortimore]

The Southern seems to have emerged from all this relatively well off?

 

No doubt the success of early mass electrification played a huge part, and none of the early/disastrous offerings of the modernisation  plan were really inflicted on the area to any degree.

Somehow classes 33,71* & 73 were built to SR spec and were/are all highly regarded, without undergoing the major changes some other classes have endured to remain useful.

 

*Rather a shame the 71's were withdrawn through lack of work...and we don't talk about the 74's in these parts (not mod-plan locos anyway)

Hi Bert

 

Wasn't it the cost of the almost total redesign of the inners of the Hastings gauge Type 3's that speeded up the demise of BRCW? From memory BR were not prepared to pay for the additional work per locomotive compared to the cost of a normal Type 3 so BRCW went ahead knowing that they would lose money in the hope they would get the contract for the new type 4 (Lion) and that elusive overseas work. Brush won the contract and got some overseas work, the ten Cuban class 47s.

[Allegheny1600]

Bill

 

I think I will deliberately start a right old set to with my nomination for the worst, which is ....... Class 55, The Deltics.

 

Yes, I know that they were (against all engineering odds and logic) reliable, and that they were jolly exciting, but how on earth can a class of 22 locomotives, each of which had two, super-sophisticated engines, be considered a good idea, when analysed coolly?!

 

I shudder to think what the unit cost per mile in traffic of the Deltics must have been, taking capital and maintenance together.

 

So, Class 55. Glorious, but insane.

 

A sort of railway 'Charge of The Light Brigade'.

 

Kevin

I sort of agree with you!

I wouldn't point to them as being the worst of the early diesels (effectively they were pre-modernisation plan) but after the national traction plan, they should have been withdrawn as they filled all the criterion; A small non standard class, Specific to one area, route. Overly sophisticated engines.

Why were they allowed to continue in service when another fine class of 74 locos were set aside? Not to mention 101 of the best hydraulics in this country, the Hymeks!

My nomination for the worst diesels on BR, with full benefit of 100% hindsight - the class 17

Worst modernisation plan diesel? Has to be the EE type C and the Derby type C - both massively overweight and unweildy. Me, a 'Peak' lover too!

Cheers,

John.

[Bert Cheese]

Hi Bert

 

Wasn't it the cost of the almost total redesign of the inners of the Hastings gauge Type 3's that speeded up the demise of BRCW? From memory BR were not prepared to pay for the additional work per locomotive compared to the cost of a normal Type 3 so BRCW went ahead knowing that they would lose money in the hope they would get the contract for the new type 4 (Lion) and that elusive overseas work. Brush won the contract and got some overseas work, the ten Cuban class 47s.

Yes, apparently so and most unfortunate for BRCW at the time I'd concede.

I'm not sure how this unfortunate turn of events came about, but nevertheless the Slims worked straight out of the box when needed and continue to do so today in limited form.

[Tim H]

What factors prevented BR from adopting the same policy as adopted by West Germany?  An earlier end to sream locomotive construction, rolling programme of electrification accompanied by a partial dieselisation, which saw steam phased out over a period of 25 years rather than 10?

 

That way we'd have seen diesels introduced from 1950 onwards, initially as replacements for life-expired older stream power. Over time, the surviving steam locomotives would have been concentrated on routes eventually scheduled for electrification, with the most modern designs kept until last.

 

The downside is we're probably have ended up with a lot of main line mileage electrified to 1500V dc rather than the more modern 25kV ac.

[pete_mcfarlane]

I don't think it can the Co-Bo, as I'm sure that I've read somewhere that it rode extremely well, and at one point BR were investigating re-engining them with something, cough, more reliable, as the electrical side of them was deemed to be good.

 

Andy G

The CIE Metro-Vick diesels seem to have performed well once they had their engines replaced. But then MV had decades of experience building electric locos, so you'd expect them to get things like bogies and electrical systems right.

[uax6]

Yes, apparently so and most unfortunate for BRCW at the time I'd concede.

I'm not sure how this unfortunate turn of events came about, but nevertheless the Slims worked straight out of the box when needed and continue to do so today in limited form.

But BRC&Wco didn't fold, it just stopped making railway locos and focussed on its Finance business. I believe it is basically the company behind First National banking.....

 

Andy G

[uax6]

The CIE Metro-Vick diesels seem to have performed well once they had their engines replaced. But then MV had decades of experience building electric locos, so you'd expect them to get things like bogies and electrical systems right.

Sadly their bogie designs weren't always good. The ones under their gas turbine were poorly designed and gave serious concern to BR. Cracks were discovered after a very short operational time...

 

Andy G