slilley

Thank you for the feedback. These things were checked from several sources, but clearly not correct. Apologies. Simon

Looking at several books including Brian Haresnape's Stanier Locomotives, and Essery & Jenkinson's An Illustrated History of LMS Locomotives Volume 5, the first ten locomotives Nos 2500-2509 had the vertical bunker. From No 2510 onwards the bunkers were cranked inwards. From No 2525 the full height cab doors were reduced to three quarter height and a cut away made to the rear of the cab at head height. The doors on the early ones were reduced but these locomotives appear not to have been given the cut away.

I am pleased to let everyone know that copies of the book The Peaks Classes 44/45/46 have arrived at the Crecy warehouse today and will be mailed out to people who have ordered copies in the coming days. Simon

Mike I have had the proofs back for the first article in Railways Illustrated, this will cover the naming of the ten Class 44s. That will be in the November issue which is due out on 5th October. The second article on the regiment names will follow in the issue after I believe Simon

Copyright transfered to the BRB Residury Body Ltd. That was dissolved in 2013 and function spread elsewhere. the following link may assist. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/brb-residuary-limited-transfer-scheme

In the mid 80s I used to organise the group travel for the Bristol City Supporters Club London Branch. I remember in Feb 85 City were away at Rotherham and Brentford, managed by Frank McLintock were playing Doncaster Rovers. We made our way back to Doncaster station from Rotherham after our match, lost 1-2 before anyone asks, and in the station bar were the Brentford team. Their train had been cancelled and they were waiting for the London service. We all got on and Frank McLintock asked me if they could use some of our unused reserved seats. Simon

The problem as well reading through the BR archives of the period is that the Modernisation Plan kicked in with 174 locos of various types ordered to form the Pilot Scheme with the idea that there would be a three year wait until the most successful were built. However, BR's finances took a rapid nosedive and so on 23 May 1957 the Pilot Scheme was abandoned as they sought to rescue the finances by going full tilt for modernisation. As a result a number of locomotive classes that should never have got beyond a small handful of examples were bulit in larger quantities and then needed major rectification work. There are the obvious suspects in there such as the various NBL products, but others that lasted many years longer needed much work and modification to them to obtain even a reasonable level of reliability and availability,the Peaks being one example. Simon

As I understand it Fred's book is a pictorial one, where as this is more text based. Simon

Hi Peter Glad to hear you are looking forwards to the book. The two articles for Railways Illustrated are an appetiser for the book. Simon

Hi Mike The first has gone off to Railways Illustrated covering how the Class 44s became named after mountains. I am waiting for confirmation as to which edition that will appear in. The article on the regimental names is about to go off to the editor and as soon as I have any further news on which issue I will post something on here. Best wishes Simon

Had it confirmed today by Crecy that The Peaks: Classes 44/45/46 is going off to the printers today and should be available around mid-September. The website now shows the agreed cover design.

I would re-iterate the previous post. The main visual difference was the smaller boiler on the same chassis. The 6MTs had the BR1 tender . Simon

The tender from the withdrawn 4469 was reconditoned and fitted with steam brakes. It was put behind Thompson pacific 3696, later 60507 Highland Chieftan, during a repair at Doncaster between 26/10/1945 and 24/12/1945. Simon

To answer your question, No 60028 was painted in purple in June 1948. It got BR blue during an overhaul in October 1950. It was then repainted into BR green in June 1952.

All 34 that made it to nationalisation were painted BR blue. 60013 was the first when ex-works on 20 May 1949. It was followed by 60032 on 10 June and 60014 on 22 June. All had the first BR logo on the tender. Supplies of the logo were clearly limited because 60031 and 60009 came out on 5 July and 4 August respectively without it though both were later given it. The last to lose Garter Blue and get BR blue was 600034 which entered Doncaster works on 25 October 1950 and left on 4 December 1950 in BR blue. This livery lasted until green with orange and black lining started to be applied from August 1951. No 60001 was the first so painted. 60026 was the last into BR green in January 1953. Simon

Apart from in the Triumph Stag where Triumph developed their own V8 which overheated and warped. Why they didnt ask Rover for the engine beats me, after all they were all aprt of BL at the time.

Steve Thank you very much. Now I have hopefully got the book off my desk and it goes off to print, I can concentrate on finishing these articles. Simon

Peak book update. Index now done and sent back. A few typos to remove but once the index is squeezed in then the book should be ready to go to print. Class-44ThePeaks-PPC-6 (2).pdf

Yeadon's Register Volume 34 says that between may 1949 and June 1950 ten tenders were given completely new bodies. They had flush sides with the upper profile not unlike the LNER Group Standard 4200 gallon tenders and held 6 1/4 tons of coal and 3900 gallons of water

The engines were built here and shipped to Romania. The BR Supply Committee noted on 6 February 1975 that arrangements for payment to be made to Brush for engines at or shortly after the time of shipment to Romania were nearing finality on terms at no additional cost to the Board and with covering Bankers guarantee. Simon

Bristol Siddeley building Maybach engines was why the Brush prototype Falcon had those engines, Brush could do the lcoomotive in house and it is why they lobbied the BTC for Maybach engines to be added to the 1960 Standard Type 4 specification.

Not at all. Sulzer and Brush were in contact because BR was wanting Brush equipment on Sulzer engines. It was an indirect relationship. As I have said several times already the answer of how Brush and Romania came together could well be in an Brush archive file somewhere. Until that is found we are merely speculating. Simon

Just to comment on a couple of things there. General Motors had talked to BR about building locomotives in the 1970s, but the numbers BR wanted were not economic for GM to take further. You say if EE had won the Class 56 order. EE was by 1974 part of GEC who had tendered. Their tender was unsatisfactory in a number of ways. Their alternator choice did not meet BR's preferences, the traction motor proposed, an existing design, gave BR doubts as to its increased rating. The auxiliary generator offered was a DC machine, BR prefered an AC machine and the control equipment would have used the KV10 regulator which BR was using and which was giving problems. Generally the GEC offering was based on the Class 50 in terms of body and bogies which BR were not in favour of. Simon

From the files I have read the tender process took place in the early months of 1974. The results were sent out in a memo by A.W. Milton of the Supplies Department on 31 May 1974. The power unit was already agreed and it was known that the Brush locomotives would be built in Romania. The bogie design was Romanian, this is mentioned in other documents I have on this subject. Simon

The choice of the Ruston engine was BR's. That said back in 1973 there were a number of factors in play. BR for some time had been looking at Class 47 refurbishment and giving the freight business more power. Kestral did not find favour as it was too complicated and tried to do too much allied to the fact there was no established production line for the 16LVA24 engine. In 1971 it was known the Ruston engine would be available in about 12 months time, and both GEC and Brush were asked about designing an alternator to match the engine. Consideration was also given to the V16 Pielstick engine developing 2800hp but BR did not proceed with that. they had come in for heavy criticism when using foreign made equipment in the APT-E. The Ruston engine in a Class 47 bodyshell was still seen as the easiest way of getting the freight business more power. The Class 47 Sulzer engine had always been problematic and in early 1973 the CM&EE was looking at alternatives should the supply of spare parts become difficult. meanwhile the freight business had said again they needed locos with more power and the Ruston engine in a Class 47 bodyshell was an easy solution. the idea originally was to re-engine one Class 47 and test it for several years then make a decision. However enter the Yom Kippur war in the autumn of 1973. the price of oil quadrupled between September and Christmas as the Arab nations turned off the taps follwoing Nixon's decision to send arms to Israel. As a result of the CEGB needing more coal as it was cheaper than burning oil, BR needed a heavy freight lcoomotive and rapidly. the conversion work on 47046 took far longer than anticipated. dates slipped and it ended up arriving at about the same time as the first Class 56s. This in summary the Ruston engine was chosen because it was pretty much the only game in town at the time that could produce the power required by the freight business. Simon