Class 13

[AMJ]

As DBS are selling off a number of locos maybe it would be feasible to take a pair of 08's just like railway modellers do and to convert one into a slave unit so that a replica/new build of one of the class 13's could be created. D4503 (green) or 13004 (blue)

 

I'n sure that the main technical bit to sort out would be the MU controls.

 

Other images like the one below can be viewed at http://www.railscans.co.uk/cl13.htm

 

http://www.railscans.co.uk/picture/13003b-ti-251081_t.jpg

[frobisher]

It would be possible, but would it be necessarily desirable? By its nature a Class 13 pairing would be higher maintenance than a pair of class 08s, the cost to recreate wouldn't be insignificant.

 

If it was "important" to have one, a better strategy would be to make a fake slave unit by removing/isolating the traction motor, cutting the cab down etc and you only need worry about the brakes then. It's not like it'll need to be able to perform like the original so lack of tractive effort wouldn't be an issue - unless there was a preserved "hump" for some shunting demos - is there..?

[Dudley Dodger]

But why not rebuild one just so that there would be one in existance, the point in preservation. not to be useful. just to be there.

[frobisher]

But why not rebuild one just so that there would be one in existance, the point in preservation. not to be useful. just to be there.

 

Thing is, a 13 is only a pair of 08s. If any of the originals had survived, I'd see a case for preserving one without hesitation, however recreating one "just to have it" doesn't have the merit of building Tornado for instance. These days, you really have to have a commercial case for projects such as this. As I said, the value in a 13 would be if you had a preserved hump shunting yard as you'd have a context for it.

 

If you just want a 13 for the sake of it, just shunt a couple of non-running scrap candidate 08s together and call them a 13

 

How about a 47/6 or 47/9 then? Or DP2? You could make one of those quite easily. It just requires vast pots of money and effort, which we all have spare...

[Jenny Emily]

A class 13 hump shunter is an extinct class, and in terms of recreating an extinct class it certainly is the cheapest option. My personal opinion would be to pair a scrap 08 with cut down cab as the slave unit with a working 08 to be the master unit. The slave unit need not even have much under the bonnet. IIRC they would need a few extra pipes and cables and extended and thickened buffer beams (on the original these increased the weight). As it would never need to do the job the 13s did, having a dummy slave unit wouldn't matter.

 

It would certainly make a change from the legions of 08s that knock around at preserved railways (and to the average punter, classes 08, 09, 10, 11 and 12 all look the same).

[halfwit]

I'm sure the money would be better spent restoring shunters already in preservation rather than re-creating a rather specialist piece of kit.

[Jenny Emily]

I'm sure the money would be better spent restoring shunters already in preservation rather than re-creating a rather specialist piece of kit.

 

Although a lot of people tried to say that at all stages of the 'Tornado' project. You could look at a class 13 as a restored class 08 hauling around its own stash of spare parts with a bit of paint splashed on and the cab taken off.

[Rumblestripe]

Never really thought about "recreating" a lost Diesel Locomotive. How easy would it be to create a replica Diesel (say a Warship, for the sake of argument)? Compared with something like Tornado?

 

Would it be acceptable to take a 37 and re-body it (again just assuming everything would physically fit)? Would it be necessary to start from scratch get the block cast, pistons etc.?

 

Cheaper than Tornado surely?

[Steve K]

How easy would it be to create a replica Diesel (say a Warship, for the sake of argument)?

 

Would it be acceptable to take a 37 and re-body it?

Someone might spot the extra wheels, of course...

 

I guess it could be done in principle, but it depends how much of a replica you want. Is it just a facsimile you're after (so the the bodyshell looks OK, but the internals could be different), or are we looking at a "proper" replica, inside and out? In theory, it might not be too complicated (NB I'm not saying it's not difficult) to produce a convincing body on a suitable donor, but many of these machines had engines which haven't been built for 40 or 50 years.

[craigwelsh]

There is a partial replica being built at the moment.. Baby Deltic that looks like a 37 from the outside (see http://www.thedps.co.uk/gallery/babydeltic?page=1 not babydeltic.com which is something else entirely!).

[S.A.C Martin]

Although a lot of people tried to say that at all stages of the 'Tornado' project.

 

Not quite true, it was more along the lines of "you can't build that bit" or "you'll never do that bit"

 

You could look at a class 13 as a restored class 08 hauling around its own stash of spare parts with a bit of paint splashed on and the cab taken off.

 

Not a bad idea, but - unlike the Peppercorn A1s - the class 13s were rendered redundant because the traffic they were built for disappeared - that, and they were made up of six 08s in fairness, all of which were scrapped fairly quickly:

 

* 13001 was scrapped at BREL Swindon Works in May 1985

* 13002 was scrapped at BREL Swindon Works in October 1983

* 13003 was scrapped at BREL Doncaster Works in September 1986

 

I'm also fairly certain that the added length wouldn't be a plus point for a preserved railway. The reason why there are so many Gronks (08s/09s/10s) in preservation is down to their compact size and power, allowing them to be shunted and moved around easily when there's a lack of space on the rails, at times.

 

If anyone wanted to do it, then fair play to them, but I know that for a working preserved railway, two separate 08s that work would be better than an elongated one, with only one working end.

[Rumblestripe]

Someone might spot the extra wheels, of course...

 

Touché!

 

What I was referring to would be to take, for example, the diesel engine from a 37 and perhaps even the traction motors so that what you ended up with was a Warship shaped diesel-electric locomotive? Would it matter? Or is the whole point to make a replica with the correct noises and smells as the original? At what point does it become a pastiche rather than a replica?

 

Note, I'm just making this up and I've no idea whether the power plant from a 37 could physically be accommodated in a Warship shaped replica!

 

You could even make the body out of glassfibre!

 

I suppose you end up with a 1:1 scale model, which is I suppose why we're all here? (I refer to this web page rather than plane of existence)

[Flying Pig]

Or is the whole point to make a replica with the correct noises and smells as the original?

Unless you're of the opinion that all diesels sound the same (in which case why bother going to the trouble of building a working replica?) wouldn't you need to find an engine that sounded more like the original than an EE 12SVT? And you'd probably want to fit hydraulic transmission anyway so that it could be driven in the correct fashion - audibly different from a diesel electric. Of course, you could make the whole thing electric and fit digital sound and smell

 

You could even make the body out of glassfibre!

I'm not sure how well the "decorative body clips onto structural chassis" approach of a model matches the real thing here. Some designs (such as the original D600 Warships) certainly had most of the strength in the underframe but the Brush 4s for example used monocoque construction.

[Burkitt]

There's already a preserved Warship in working order and another under restoration, so demand for new build of that class would seem limited.

More popular might be to attempt a recreation of the lost HS4000 Kestrel, given the length to which topics on this forum and others about the possibility of its survival have run.

The simplest method would be to build streamlined Kestrel style cabs on a 47, but leave it otherwise unchanged. For a more accurate reproduction, the other engines of the same type as in Kestrel are reputed to be in power stations somewhere in France, so if they could be tracked down the mechanical workings could be more faithfully replicated.

 

Paul

[Flying Pig]

There's a picture of a mock-up of a streamlined Brush 4 on this page which clearly influenced the styling of Kestrel, so perhaps that sort of "what if" would be the way to go. It would be interesting to see how close a match to Kestrel would be possible within the constraints of the underlying structure.

 

I doubt that shoehorning the 16LVA24 engine into a 47 would be an easy job, if it were possible at all.

[craigwelsh]

There's already a preserved Warship in working order and another under restoration, so demand for new build of that class would seem limited.

Paul

D600 Warships haven't been preserved (sadly, considering how long Ark Royal managed at Barry.).

[Dagworth]

If someone really wants to have a go at recreating a lost loco then DP2 has to be the easiest. Take one Deltic, mix with a class 50......

 

Andi

[Welly]

^^^^

Please - no ideas like that!!! Taking Napiers out of a Deltic is loco castration !!!!

[Guest stuartp]

If someone really wants to have a go at recreating a lost loco then DP2 has to be the easiest. Take one Deltic, mix with a class 50......

 

Andi

 

 

You could chop up one of the dozens of 'preserved' 37s cluttering the place up and put the other Napier in that - DP2 and a Baby Deltic !

 

(Monty Wells did one in the Modeller, it can't be that difficult... )

[AMJ]

As there are bodyside defferences between a Deltic and DP2 why not get a suitable chassis and mount the two cabs that DPS have on to each end and then add the suitable sides, scrap one of the many 50's for the mechanicals and la voila DP2.

 

I'm glad that the Class 13 idea has got you thinking outside the box of what lost diesel locos could we recreate.

[Guest Phil]

Most of this thread involves the aesthetics, but I'd love to hear the innards from a Portugese 1800 installed in a BR diesel. The problem is internal size. The CP 1800s sounded to me like a cross between BR classes 40 and 50 - partly because they only had one turbo at each end of the engine block.

 

One of the numerous preserved class 50s would become quite distinct with this modified power unit.

 

It is also interesting to speculate on what might happened to the BR diesel fleet if they'd looked towards the US for power units. No, I'm not advocating straightforward "ying yings", but just imagine if the Brush type twos had ended up with Alco engines. There were plenty around at this time. Just imagine an "Alco RS3" working a Birmingham-Norwich, or Paddington and Cricklewood empty stocks !!!

[Jenny Emily]

It is an interesting point - how many people do actually get to look inside the innards of a locomotive? Not many in the grand scheme of things. I've seen a lot of excellent kit cars built to look like some very rare old supercars, but underneath they have modern bits and pieces that make them go. They look the part, and whilst a harcore of rivet counters might shun them, they are superb little beasts that the average punter sees as being largely the car they are a copy of.

 

I've never seen inside a class 37 but I've ridden behind a great many of them. A body shell that looks like a lost class 21, 22, 23, 29 or even 13 is certainly a better thing to be able to see than just looking at old photos and whinging that if anyone did have the gumption to try a replica that they would have to be rivet for rivet accurate. I've seen far too many preserved gronks to be as impressed as I would be if a psuedo class 13 was there instead. If the bodyshell looks right, why not have a reasonable half way house to replicating an extinct class of locomotives. A modified pair of class 08s they might have been, but there are plenty of other extinct classes that looked similar to something else (the classes 29, 30, 48). Even a class 57 looks rather like a 47 to 99% of the people who ride behind them.

 

True, it would have been better if some-one had saved an original class 13 when they became redundant. But they didn't, so the next best thing would be a commendable act for anyone who felt like doing something a little different from anyone else.

[Guest Phil]

It is an interesting point - how many people do actually get to look inside the innards of a locomotive? Not many in the grand scheme of things. I've seen a lot of excellent kit cars built to look like some very rare old supercars, but underneath they have modern bits and pieces that make them go. They look the part, and whilst a harcore of rivet counters might shun them, they are superb little beasts that the average punter sees as being largely the car they are a copy of.

 

I've never seen inside a class 37 but I've ridden behind a great many of them.

 

Guess I'm fortunate from that respect, but I remember the first time I walked into the engine room of a class 47. There are grids on the floor for you to walk over with a pool of liquids sloshing around under them. I remember it being said that when the new class 66s were heading for our country, it would be possible to eat off the engine room floor and the bedplate would always be dry. From what I am told I certainly wouldn;t want to be eating off the floor of a 66.

[Colin_McLeod]

How about a new build Blue Pullman?

[Pennine MC]

If someone really wants to have a go at recreating a lost loco then DP2 has to be the easiest. Take one Deltic, mix with a class 50......

 

 

Are they scrapping 'Gordon Highlander' again then

 

 

I've seen far too many preserved gronks to be as impressed as I would be if a psuedo class 13 was there instead.

 

 

 

I think the point as made about 08s is that they're convenient; there not to impress but to help run the line for the majority of (non-enthusiast) visitors

 

Must admit though I'm warming to the notion of a Kestrel replica from a 47, with a reclaimed engine (didnt realise so many had been made). Wouldnt be cheap though

 

How about a new build Blue Pullman?

 

C'mon Colin, you know the drill - Midland or Western