Western Region Diesel-Hydraulics - what could have happened?

[Allegheny1600]

Hi all,

I've been musing over this subject for a while now and I don't think I can do anymore with it so I thought I'd throw it open for debate and see what you guys make of it!

What if;

When the BRB decided that the Western Region's diesel hydraulic loco classes were not 'standard' and should be disposed of, they (the BRB) were told they couldn't just scrap relatively recent designs, they had to get the best price possible for them by selling them to foreign markets. I should have thought that at that time, this would have been a very sensible thing to do.

This may have had the effect of ensuring that these locos were actually kept in quite decent condition both mechanically and cosmetically.

Anyway, who would have been interested in such machines?

Principally the Germans, after all - it was German designs that ours were based on and they had very good experience of running hydraulics and indeed, were still busy constructing new diesel hydraulics for quite a while to come.

Maybe also, the Italians?

I believe they run/ran small diesel hydraulics, maybe they would have been interested in some more powerful designs?

Finally either the Iberian peninsular or the Balkans?

I believe one class 14 actually did end up in Spain, the Portuguese had some British designed loco classes, the Greeks bought anything cheap as did possibly, the Yugoslavs. The Greeks certainly DID end up with some ex German V200's several years later, as did the Italians!

This is about my knowledge of the European loco fleet c.1970, I have ignored countries that AFAIK never ran hydraulics or imported British diesels although that's not to say that say, Holland may have pre-empted the EM2 deal for example.

Also, I haven't looked further afield, maybe Commonwealth countries could have been interested - IF they had know about it?

Just imagine how the British loco enthusiast might have responded if for example, he could have had a holiday in the sun while watching a favourite loco class working abroad nearby!

Cheers for now,

John E.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

The sale potential would have been made difficult by the BRB's well publicised plan to improve BR's diesel traction situation by reducing the number of classes in service, with an emphasis on elimination of the least reliable types: and that meant all hydraulic transmission locomotives at that time. "Let me sell you stuff we have found insufficiently reliable to retain in service" is not a great going in position. Then you have to look at spares support by the original manufacturers; if that is no longer available, or is compromised in any way,  a purchaser with their head screwed on is going to be yet more leery.

 

What was the scrap metal value like? If scrap prices were good, it is the low effort option. It also has the political advantage of 'burial'. The last thing anyone would want to happen is for a fleet quantity to be sold cheaply to Ambidextrania, and then yield class leading availability and reliability figures, questions asked in parliament and all that. If it has to die because we said it wasn't reliable enough, better to make sure that no contrary evidence can ever emerge.

 

Weren't quite a number of the engine units recycled into the NHS as hospital  emergency power diesel generator sets?

[ForestPines]

Selling locos off to DB could have gone two ways - it depends exactly why they were unreliable in the first place. Possibly a German fitter used to the care of DB locos could have got higher reliability - but if the root cause was that the loco's manufacturers were building unfamiliar licenced components, it might not help.

 

Does anyone know if the German-based hydraulic designs had the detail design altered to use British rather than metric fittings? I would have assumed so, which might have caused a spares headache to any foreign buyer (not that NS seemed to care).

[ForestPines]

(it would have looked rather odd if it had happened too - physically, a Warship is considerably smaller than a V200. It would, in fact, look as if you'd put an H0 model on an OO layout!)

[kevinlms]

The sale potential would have been made difficult by the BRB's well publicised plan to improve BR's diesel traction situation by reducing the number of classes in service, with an emphasis on elimination of the least reliable types: and that meant all hydraulic transmission locomotives at that time. "Let me sell you stuff we have found insufficiently reliable to retain in service" is not a great going in position. Then you have to look at spares support by the original manufacturers; if that is no longer available, or is compromised in any way,  a purchaser with their head screwed on is going to be yet more leery.

You only have to look at North British as proof of that. They expected the steam locomotive business to slowly scale down during the next 25 years, with buyers expected to be Commonwealth railways & other 3rd world buyers.

 

Instead it collapsed overnight with these same type of railways, following British railways in abandoning steam with immediate effect.

[kevinlms]

I think the answer is yes.  See Diesel Hydraulic Locomotives of the Western Region.  Brian Reed.  David & Charles. 1975.  It does not make happy reading....  The MAN engines built under license by NBL Co. had all sorts of issues because the British thought they knew best.

I agree. Its no wonder few manufacturers, allow critical components such as diesel engines to be made under licence. Any form of quality control, is totally dependant on others peoples interpretation of your product & name.

Just because a product (diesel hydraulics) is different, doesn't make it right. The LNWR wouldn't allow a mixed gauge station at any of its stations & indeed went to great lengths to avoid them.

[Allegheny1600]

Many thanks guys for your responses to my query.

I should have added that I considered that the D600's, the first (6?) D63XX's and any of the 'non-standard' D800's probably could have been disposed of without any further ado, as they really were non-standard.

What I was contemplating is, could the much more standard (within the hydraulic classes) types; 'production' D63XX's and D800's, the D95ers, Hymek's & Westerns (some 350 odd locos in total!), have had a future abroad IF the government of the day had told the BRB to raise capital from them?

When you think about it, surely a running S/H loco must have been worth at least 10 - 15 thousand pounds even then? Approximately five million pounds in total - an awful lot of money in 1970!

I can only look at this from a modellers viewpoint, I must admit but I have read that reliability figures on these types was actually better than on some of the D-E types drafted in to replace them. I was always of the opinion that these locos were only disposed of as a matter of policy, rather than through being so utterly unreliable.

.

Basically I was looking for a reasonable 'excuse' to run my hydraulics on my Continental set-up!

Cheers,

John E.

[TheEngineShed]

 

When you think about it, surely a running S/H loco must have been worth at least 10 - 15 thousand pounds even then? Approximately five million pounds in total - an awful lot of money in 1970!

 

Some of the Maybach engines that came out of the Westerns were sold on by BR.  During a works tour I asked about the Maybachs being removed from Westerns and was told they were being sold on for marine use.  The MD655 we were looking at was supposedly going to South Africa...

[Allegheny1600]

Reading Brain Reed's book, I came to the conclusion that politics, both national and railway interfered too much with the procurement process of the hydraulics in the late 50s / early 60s.

Too true!

Mind, what was really needed was for us to have been able to buy straight off the shelf, F9's, GP9's and SD9's!!! Really reliable designs, those! Different subject though!

 

 The DB V200s were a solution, but with only 10+ years since the end of WW2 and the defeat of Germany, buying German locos was a no-no. 

The next best solution and a great pity we couldn't build these, under licence - properly!

 

 The D1000s were dogged by reliability problems.  

[Baby Deltic]

British Railways didn't like quick running engines or two stroke's. In all fairness, looking at the diesel electrics BR had serious issues with Crompton Parkinson equipment failing at such a rate that it caused delivery problems for new equipment. I believe that this was the reason BR came up with the Brush class 46 varient during 'Peak' production. The Sulzer 12LDA28C power units were causing major headaches aswell with crankcase webbing fractures, etc.

[Allegheny1600]

I have read (not sure where, right now) that the problems with the D1000's were starting to be resolved after a few years of service, such that by time the seventies came around, they were better than the Sulzer powered type 4's.

[bigherb]

The MAN engines built under license by NBL Co. had all sorts of issues because the British thought they knew best.

They weren't a good engine to start off with, even the Germans made some pups.

[Derekl]

I gather from a Swindon engineer that the bigger hydraulics, the Warships and the Westerns suffered from problems in the exhaust area, not, as far as I could make out, dissimilar to the problems with the HST's, later. He spent a lot of time wrapping asbestos tape around the exhausts in various ways to sort out the problems - which is how I came across him, as he developed an asbestos related disease. My recollection is that he thought the problems had largely been sorted out just before the fleet was scrapped, which is consistent with views above.

 

I recall reading (not very usefully, I cannot remember where) that when the Warships turned up reliability problems, a comparison exercise was undertaken with the V200 class in Germany. It turned out that German service demands on the V200's were far below those on the Western Region (something under 50% most of the time in Germany, around 90% on the Western). That is consistent with Gerard Fiennes (general manager of the WR at the time) account in his book "I tried to run a railway", when the WR was having time-keeping problems, that he sent the loco inspectors out to ride with drivers and tell them to run hard. His view was that the operators wanted locos that would do what was asked of them, and if they could not, that was the engineering department's problem.

 

There were politics of a sort in the early scrapping of the hydraulics. After nationalisation, the 1951 Conservative government gave more autonomy to the regions (the obvious effects being the return to brown and cream livery on some WR coaches, all over maroon on the LMR). One side effect was that regions were given more freedom in procurement policies - and the Western went for the hydraulics. Once centralised control returned, the hydraulics were regarded as non-standard and/or unreliable and with others of the early diesel classes, went to scrap.

 

I have also read somewhere (not very useful, possibly Wikipedia) that the Germans went for hydraulics because the treaty at the conclusion of WW2 restricted their development of diesel electric transmission systems (and no, I also have no idea why that might have been), and thus the development of diesel hydraulic transmissions.

[The Stationmaster]

I have read (not sure where, right now) that the problems with the D1000's were starting to be resolved after a few years of service, such that by time the seventies came around, they were better than the Sulzer powered type 4's.

A factor in the infamous comparison report (of Brush Type 4 diesel electric vs. D10XX diesel hydraulc).  Despite the fact that one depot was operating, servicing and maintaining both types the figures used in the report were drawn from two different depots on two different Regions with two different ways of recording casualties and two different ways of accounting for things like overheads and two different ways of recording availability.  Net result the Brush 4 recorded better figures than the 1000s - yet at that time Canton was dealing with both types using a consistent method of accounting and a consistent (WR) policy of recording casualties and faults, only problem was that on those figures the diesel-hydraulic was the more reliable loco in terms of miles per casualty and was recording lower maintenance costs and achieving better availability.

[Baby Deltic]

I have read (not sure where, right now) that the problems with the D1000's were starting to be resolved after a few years of service, such that by time the seventies came around, they were better than the Sulzer powered type 4's.

I think the problem with the Westerns, aside from having hydraulic transmission, was that by the 1970's alternative power units were available which could singly (and fairly reliably) produce 2700 hp without breaking into too much of a sweat; The EE 16CSVT springs to mind.. Having a loco with two engines must have been expensive from an operational point of view in terms of fuel and maintenance, even if reliability figures were higher than the class 47's. Obviously time would prove that the Sulzer 12LDA 28C was not capable of reliably producing 2750hp without getting stressed, and it was derated to 2580hp. Bear in mind also that a twin engined loco can limp home on half power if an engine shuts down with a fault, so it might look better on the reliablity figures if the loco was not a 'dead in the water' failure. D600 suffered an engine shutdown on its inaugural run with the press, and still limped home albeit very late.

[Bert Cheese]

The WR hydraulics are truly a tale of tragedy, a fantastic idea doomed by politics and engineering short sightedness.

 

In theory they offered a near perfect solution to the replacement of steam, but never really looked to the future where the virtual impossibility of providing ETH must have been a pivotal point in their downfall?

 

My father drove class 35/42/52 and spoke with some affection of them all despite their foibles such as dynostarter fires and broken carden shafts destroying engine rooms!

 

Haying said that he also enjoyed winding up "The Walls Ice Cream Men" from Pad who drove the (D/E) Blue Pullmans, a knock on the cab window and a request for 2 cornets by some scruffy SR herberts fresh off a filthy S15 would see the glass swiftly slammed shut!

[The Stationmaster]

I think the problem with the Westerns, aside from having hydraulic transmission, was that by the 1970's alternative power units were available which could singly (and fairly reliably) produce 2700 hp without breaking into too much of a sweat; The EE 16CSVT springs to mind.. Having a loco with two engines must have been expensive from an operational point of view in terms of fuel and maintenance, even if reliability figures were higher than the class 47's. Obviously time would prove that the Sulzer 12LDA 28C was not capable of reliably producing 2750hp without getting stressed, and it was derated to 2580hp. Bear in mind also that a twin engined loco can limp home on half power if an engine shuts down with a fault, so it might look better on the reliablity figures if the loco was not a 'dead in the water' failure. D600 suffered an engine shutdown on its inaugural run with the press, and still limped home albeit very late.

The twin engine aspect of the 1000s wouldn't affect availability and reliability figures although if one engine went out for any reason it would show up as a casualty on the WR way of counting casualties.  

 

On the WR planned availability was the number of locos available for traffic after maintenance and works allocation were taken out - e.g if there was a class of 100 locos and 10 were on works/undergoing booked maintenance then availability was 90%.  On some other Regions (including the one which suppiled the Brush Type 4 figures for the report according to what I was told) planned availability ignored locos in works and merely took out planned maintenance - so if, say, a couple of locos were booked to be in works the fleet size used to calculate availability would be 98 locos instead of 100, and if 5 locos were in works the fleet became 95.  Actual availability was calculated on the same basis so if, say, some sudden problem took 10 hydraulics out of a class for major repairs then availability would drop, but if elsewhere 10 locos were stopped for repairs the base figure for class size would be reduced to 90 and actual availability wouldn't look so bad, even if trains were being cancelled.

 

There is a lot of truth in the old saying about lies, damned lies, and statistics.

[Talltim]

If only BR had gone for hydraulic train hotel power...

[The Stationmaster]

If only BR had gone for hydraulic train hotel power...

No need - I was told that a number of options were looked at for equipping the 1000s for ETH operation and a drawing was prepared in order to cost the conversion but the job was rejected on cost plus the fact that hydraulics were considered non-standard and limited life.  I wouldn't mind betting that everyone also had in mind the long-drawn process of the first air brake conversion as well.

[Guest maxthemapman]

I seem to recall that train heating boilers were an endless source of trouble on all diesels, would the Germans have had this problem?

 

Brian Reed's book pretty-well ends with 'a plague on both your houses', diesel electrics were rubbish too at the time.

 

The Germans would probably be less likely to indulge in the steam-train mentality 'hit it with a hammer until it works' but, on the other hand, presumably they knew about the mass-carnage of their designs taking place, but were hardly queueing up to buy them.

[Rugd1022]

So many myths and untruths have been perpetuated about the Hydraulic saga over the years that certain aspects of it have become 'facts' despite being proved otherwise in recent years, thanks fo people like Adrian Curtis, Martin Street and the estimable Hugh Dady etc. The D600s weren't what the WR wanted, granted, but they aquitted themselves admirably, particularly so west of Newton Abbot, if you speak to those who actually drove and maintained them. Being only a small class of five it was inevitable that if more then one of them were out of traffic the availability figures took an instant nosedive. An ex-Swindon fitter mentioned on the facebook Diesel Hydraulic page yesterday that one of them behaved superbly on test in 1966 when he rode on it, and I can honestly say I've never heard a bad word said about them from any footplate crew of the time. Heavy and cumbersome they may have been, but talk to any (surviving!) Laira, Truro, St.Blazey or Penzance men and they will tell you what wonderful hillclimbers they were. Ask them about the D800s and they'll tell you the same thing, probably adding that aside from the MAN exhaust problems in the NBL 43s, they could all run like the wind all day long given a clear road. As daft as it sounds though, sometimes it was the smallest of things which could bring one of these greyhounds to a grinding halt - one of the biggest causes of electrical failures on the D800s was spilt tea finding it's way into the electrical gubbins in the centre of the cab! The Laira and Newton Abbot fitters soon cottoned onto this and managed to isolate various items until the 'short' was found where a damp spot would be seen behind the access panels... ;-)

 

Likewise with the 'troublesome' D6300s, they've always had the reputation in the printed media of being abject failures from start to finish, yet they were still trusted with twenty coach empty stock trains over the South Devon banks single handedly as late as the day before the last four withdrawn on new Year's Day 1972! They were particularly well liked by the Old Oak crews once they'd been transferred up from the West Country, with some of th shed foremen having no hesitation in sending them out on the mainline to assist other failures. Very comfy cabs by all accounts to and easy locos to shunt with.

 

By far the biggest cause of concern in the early days of the Type 4 Hydraulics was the quality of outsourced components like cardan shaft couplings and rubbers, train heating boilers and cooler groups - in comparison to which the Maybach power units were seen as being very reliable once the fitting staff had got used to working on them. A lot is often made of failures in service in the early days too, but as I've said previously in another thread some time ago the problem was more to do with the instructors being thrown in at the deep end every bit as much as the the train crews were while learning the new traction. A simple fuse blowing could stop the job with much scratching of heads and phone calls being made to control to try and sort things out 'on the go' so to speak.

 

''The defence rests, M'Lud...!''

[Michael Delamar]

how improved have transmissions improved nowadays in other countries hydraulic locos, ie what sort of power can now be put through them?

[Michael Delamar]

Warships D600 & D815 11-06-67 by phantomfgr2, on Flickr

[Andy Kirkham]

Time to lift the gloom about the demise of the WR hydraulics.  Photos taken 01/06/2007 on the West Somerset Railway.

 

P6150960.JPG

 

P6151013.JPG

 

I wonder why the owners of these locos, having painted them red and green respectively, then elected to apply full yellow ends. It was a shame to obliterate the Hymek's pale window surrounds which were so carefully devised to complement the locos' elegant styling; but on the Warships yellow ends were an aesthetic catatrophe, flattening their subtly contoured forms into a disconcertingly dead looking mask.

[Flying Pig]

how improved have transmissions improved nowadays in other countries hydraulic locos, ie what sort of power can now be put through them?

 

Voith Maxima - 4800hp