The Missing Link....Csvt to RK

I feel a bit like I have uncovered piltdown man. The mythical  evolutionary link between the pulsing csvt and the rather dull RK 16 and 12 in traction form.

This is the ktm class 22 Malaysian locomotives. Built by AEI austrailia in 1971-2, these prove to be reliable and as for all type 3s on sub 500 tonne trains, a star performer.

At 1760 hp it is 220 hp per cylinder. This would make the v12 2640hp and the vee sixteen, 3520. There it is, the missing link between the "ten by 12" csvt and the rk 270 which found its highest traction rating in the class 58.

But...the csvt still dubs, whistles, growls and whines rather than screetching !

Well anyway the last of its kind was the lighter rk 215 which still sounds like an EE rustons machine. I hope a series of. 6, 8, 12 and 16 locos sees the light of day in europe.

The Class 38 Connundrum

BR / BTC came very close to having class thirty eights. You can trace this back to the very development of the CSVT engine which was the obvious successor to the SVT even by the time the first D200s had completed commissioning.

Further the last orders for 37s were seen as being largely a freight dedicated batch and EE apparently offered the "bone" cabbed 2000hp locos they sent to east africa ( now sudan and somalia)

What form would the class 38s or class 40/1s have taken though ?

This is a fascinating flight of fancy in fact. There are several possibilities.

Firstly the earliest solution would have been a production run of 2000hp D6700s. There may have been radiator modifications, perhaps a higher capacity boiler. One option EE may have taken up though could have been dual heat with a boiler space and space for a straight six 450 hp auxiallry motor ( a duplicaiton of the boiler / Engine space as penned in the sales panphlet to BR for D6700) . This would have needed more legnth to fit the additional equipment and allow for longer range fuel tanks. Weight would have then pushed up about 6-8 tonnes for the frame and tanks and 2 tonnes for the engine : thus making an RA6 loco. EE would have kept the proven deltic/D6700 gearing although fitted cast bogie frames and stronger armature equipment to tackle the extra thrashing.

EE also offered the v16 CSVT at the then "safe" 2350hp rail de-rating, approximately the same as the D6700 as lowered from marine / power station rating per cylinder. This rating ended up in the successful C1800s of Portuguese railways. Brush were also in the picture here as locomotive manufacturer! This before the class 31 type was re-engined with the 1470hp SVT version of the v12.

There were several precedents for brush being asked in: one they had produced a 2000hp class 31 with a air charge cooled Mirlees unit, and they had worked on peaks by that time in the very early 60s. The other being that BTC/BRB did want a degree of standardisation but wanted some wider perespective in delivery-solution and not being too bound to one supplier.

However neither were to be, and it took EE making DP2 and BRCW's Lion to move things forward for more modern, lighter weight type 4s to start appearing in production by the mid 1960s.

By then EE had more experience of the CSVT engine and were confident that the then full marine rating was just as applicable to rail traction. It wasn't long after D449 was delivered that the RK engine gained over 3000 hp for marine application and went on to 3250 and more in the mid seventies.

So EE offered the 2000hp in the "east african railways" design, probably with ETH as an option. However BRB declined and stayed with the same strategy as the D200 order- it is standard as a class by numbers now, don't fix if it aint broken.

Type 3s and the newly ruston re-engined almost type 3 Brush type 2, were proving themselves to be very useful: tackling especially freight diagrams previously larger or multiple steam locos were seen on, and also taking over the diagrams of mid powered steamers like the black 5 and castles in generally excellent fashion.

Meanwhile the type two investment showed itself already to be a folly because the underpowered "rats" were often needed paired up to work even 300 ton trains and the single unit traffic they had been built to command, was drying up post Beechings and the rise of the lorry and motorway. There are enough "standard gauge" railways in the world at that time for the standard LDA6 loco fleet to have been decimated down by sale to needy railways with less ambitious speeds and a requirement for low gross weight of locos over poorer trackbeds and bridging. Some of the "rat" classes should have been upgraded to the far superior LDA 8 engine as type threes to join their more successful cousins as type 3s, which became the Class 33.

 350 to 1000 tonne freight was where the railway excelled and on the passenger side, the intercity and express cross country and commuting services were also the economic area the railway could win in, and these diagrams remain so today and will become more so in future . Type 3s could command the lower end of this tonnage  in single units, and the larger end would prove to be economic for a long time as double units until the advent of SEPEX and the american creep control systems enabling single units to start 1000 tonne plus trains.

So in 1964 to 65 the BRB could have decided to take up EE's offer for a 2000hp 12 CSVT based, slab end loco.  However rather than being a substitute for the last 40 or so D6700s, an order for a new loco class, to be the "little sister" to the then planned EE type 4 production run from the success of DP2.  What form then a "syphon Super G!"  ??

Well by then the order for a new class would have been with slab ends but most likely with internal walk through for driver safety and inspection "on platform" of internal mechanism failures. An extended order of D6600s to 2000hp with ETH fitting could have been another tantalising possibility. However there was also a dwindeling number of RA5 lines. Perhaps a new 2000hp loco would have been given higher weight and for freight dedication, a lower gearing like the 20s and later CP7 bogies?

I like to think that an EE super-syphon would have been in effect a mini fifty with pleasing tumble home sides. It would have probably retained blue star, buffer level multiple working and hence, as the original d400, with an elegant roof level horn box and route indicator below cab window. Thus it may have resembled a cross between the D400 and the shorter, lighter C1800 exported to Portugal.

What gap in the haulage requirements of the mid to late 60s would this loco have filled ? Well given a full dual heated, stretched RA6 variant then it could have been employed on the then rather common expresses to reginional cities and towns from the then partly electrified WCML which were then served in the early 60s still by steam, d200s and peaks: the latter being total overkill for hauling load 6 to 8 on a 40 to 70mph route. The first generation DMUs were already proving troublesome on trans penine and other express and semi fast services so there was another chance to displace these to their rightful place on regional stopping services. Other diagrams and routes for an ETH / dual heat class could have been cross london with Southern region stock, and dragging southern region units around like 33/1s but maybe on routes like the MULE or as above, cross london or SE to SW services.

 A 2000hp loco at RA5 with ETH and standard gearing would have as an alternative, been a very useful bit of kit replacing for example type two double headers on ex WCML route5 s to Aberystwyth and the WHL. We must also remember that the crown prince of passenger traction weighed in at a humble 105 tonnes, the supreme Deltic. Light weight was seen as the key to good power to weight delivery and high speed by EE despite the tendency to wheel spin.

This is another little issue on the electrcial power delivery : EE were ready with AAA arrangement for traction motors with independent current reduction per motor as implemented on the class 50. How much use would this have been on a class 37  with even more horse power ?

The final tantalas I present is then also a matter of electro-mechanics: 1) would the locos have the KV10 style sensibility 2) would EE have dared to use a fourth field diversion to a final, higher voltage enabling 95-100mph "cruising" ? Post 1995 bashers don't believe that the humble 37 could top 100mph in single form. They would have day-in-day out on the Glasgow-Edinburgh run and in pairs on the Super west country services (replacing and supplementing Westerns). The Kv10 could have rendered the locos actually more reliable or with a cheaper service because in theory it reduces driver demanded overloads and hence wheel slip. At the same time it would have deminished the real strong point of 37s- being able to groan up gradients on high amps at decreasing speed.

The one over riding question would be if the CSVT unit in the 1960s form should have ever gone to the rating of 167 hp per cylinder : 50s were experiencing engine block cracks in the 1980s, while 37s rode on and could have remained as a class of over 150 locos today given the traffic for them on Ra5 routes. Inherently a multiple of three , 120', is a smoother engine for an equivalent per cylinder rating because the power delivery pulses are more balanced ; this is the dub in the fifties. 37 292 was a lame machine when I had it, but was that due to the uprating or to a lack of up-rated maintainance on the valves and timing chain ? I think a fleet of 2000hp super syphons could have seen their wings clipped by dertaing to 1850 or all the way to D6700, but also they would have been standard enough, new enought and useful enough to have gone through HGR and received alternators and CP7 bogies.

In the 1970s there was no stomach in reality but for the highest performance end of freight and passenger ( HST) and the ECML was still planned to be electrified. Had we never had diesel hydraulics or so many vermin type 2 sulzer slugs then there would have been an obvious gap for a light type 3 / 4: Sulzer offered the v8 version of the LDV engine for example or derated v12s to various customers. Also the fuel crisis could have set the scene for the reduction of type two multiple working and the slowing of type 4 diagrams. Type 3s and the Brush 2, have all been quoted as being the best fuel economic locomotives relative to the broad duties they tackled.

At least EE fans can look back at the various machines: the ever ready 08's and 20s, the magnificent stop gap deltics which long out lived their design missive, the duplicitous 50s- soveriegn when working but flawed in original complexity and even HGR remodellign, the robust class 40 and finally the ubiquitous, all conquering class 37 : a locomotive which spanned 50 years of railway history, working the legnth of breadth of the Uk, tackling everything from the heaviest freights, the most challenging routes and even propelling the APT on speed trials on the ECML : the most renown and resolute of all classes by nature of their ability to take on more than they were designed for and to live longer than anticipated to the joy of railway fans the legnth of Blighty!!!

The 2350 bhp big sister never was on BR

It was fascinating to hear that in the race fora type four power over essentially type two double headers, that brush were also in the game with a design featuring an EE power unit.

The timing is what could be quite the crux of the whole matter: EE proposed the csvt and co-co construction be adopted for later runs of the EE type four D200. This was maybe as early as 1959 by which time ee had sold some 12CSVT locos to africa and no doubt fully evaluated the power unit at upto 2000bhp and even beyond for a marine constant output rating.

Btc/brb in their wisdom knew the d200 proved a useful design and reliable. It is still strange that they did not opt for a lighter RA6 co-co with the svt engine because bogies are life time items with probably little to gain in purchase and maintainance costs over the life of a loco. One hundred and twenty forty 'zeros' would have been a significant class in its own right by 1960. A subsequent csvt class in co co would have followed even more standardisation with the EE type 3 : bogies and many other features like cabs, noses and boilers. For a loco with no boiler space required the 16 csvt can actually be fitted into a 37, with the c1800s exported to portugal being the same weight range as the venerable 37s.

The ee outcome would have been an ra6 syphon with 100mph capability if ordered to a 1960 design, nose end and no KV10.

But what of brush?

Well in 1960 it would have no doubt been a stretched class 30, but probably without a corridor door . Incidentally the mirlees engines of the brush type 2 were not swapped out until 1964, so it is interesting that earlier cooperation was aired, probably under the proposed stipulation of standard power units being employed across manufacturers. Sulzer being swiss were expensive and left brush and btc/brb exposed to any weakness in the pound. Also as happened later, brush lacked capacity to meet demand from european railways and began using various sub contractors to build major components or even complete power units and the fiasco with the uprated 'duff' PU was somewhat inevitable.

EE rustons scaled their work well in the 1950s and had a successful expert sub contractor in Robert Stephenson and Hawthornes in derby.

A later order would have resulted in the BTC stipulated slab end lion and then hymeks and later variants. Probably with under window indicator opanels but at 2350bhp brb may have wanted multiple working with high side connection. The same fate befell the d400s rather clean initial design while the duffs escaped multiple working which would in fact have extended their utility on freight immensely and on the larger midland and west country passengers and sleepers.

What ever the body design, the design outcome of the mechanical electrcal traction gearings chosen would have fascinating. Would brush have opted their preference for high amps on a somewhat lower torque, higher rpm engine than the 12LDA they had some exposure to in the peaks  by then. Or would they have opted for acheiving the same as EE, a higher voltage set up with effectively lower gearing but arguably more progressive delivery of electical power from the longer rpm range of the ruston big vee.

If this had come to be in 1960 then you could bet that brush would have made a relaible locomotive with performance better than the Peak heavy weight on expresses. There after a further uprating to 2700 hp and two or three suppliers would have made the big dubber the standatd PU and far more push back against BtC for all the prototype gadgetry emloyed in the first ten years of class 50 life.

On many types of services the non KV10 delivery or higher amps a brush loco may have employed, the locos at the 2350 hp would have given the class 50 more than a run for their money head-to-head, and tackled freights better at low speed and gradients due to the over caution excised by the kv10 controller. Furthermore as with the 37s, 31and C 1800s of portugal, the reliability would have been far better than either the EE dubbers or the Brush sulzer duffers which came to pass into railway legend for their idiosyncracies.

Wasted Youth?

I often think what a waste of time all that running about after locos was. Then i remember a big loco dropping on and a desperate bail for it.

One i always come back to was on my first freedom-of-scotland. July 1983. I think we were due to do the overnight anyhows to be able to cover some super early glasgow moves or as it happened go further north. Anyway if I remember right there were a couple of 40s ganging about ecs and the 22 something edinburgh mail. We got the gen that a duff had a windscreen smashed. The 2345 1N05 was going to be late.
David baker and perhaps peter walker were on board mo less than a whistler. 40 170 had 'produced'.

Just a few year earlier not an eye lid would have batted at a forty on this train, but now 40s were no longer allocated on ScR. Duffs reigned on all expresses just about. And 40s were, like the big sister deltics, for the cutting torch. Generally more reliable than duffs and peaks, their charming chortle was not enough to save them even by a rationalisation. To be withdrawn upon failure pretty much.

My point being it was darn exciting to get this 133 tonnes of whistling, grumbling EE music on the service. Probably the second forty i ever did, having been the only basher on 40001 on the carlisle newcastle that week.  

At gleneagles the infamous bradford bender and gang came shreaking on board and infected us with their mad west yorkshire enthusiasm for the old girls.

At some point at night there was so me banter about queen street control or some other BR digniatries had accused rail enthusiasts of bricking the duff. Bradford and co had been on the shed that day. I suppose 40 170 was xo so not popular despite it being a mildish july night. Anyway it became an instant platform myth.

The truth is the forty lacked a window too. David baker had a rotten run up to perth with a broken 2nd mans cab side window. Springburn 'neds' had doen a few of the locos sitting on pole position, the forty probably being allocated ecs down the tunnel. In fact i think it banked out the 1650 ft bill.

So back to my point, loco type aside. Was it all a misspent youth? Well yes and no of course. It taught me to be independent and positive to making new friends with like minded strangers. It taught me to be far more egalitarian, in fact pretty socialist.  Most bashers I met came from terraced houses in the midlands, owned one denim jacket and one rabbit trimmed parka and spent every spare penny on bashing.

Socialism is about to be a really useful skill set as we move into economic catastrophe, having been a ridiculed political stand point why we all raan up bigger debts than under any actual socialist government.

There are downsides- it is not good for your health and there is a large amount of passiveness about being taken evverywhere on someone elses system and timetable.

Other skills you acquire though? Independence and self reliance. Communication. And above all planning, logistics and risk management in doing moves like Kilmarnock or Cærsws.

That and seeing scotland in particular from the relaxing arm chair seat that was the mark I corridor carraige of BR. That was worth it all.

The biggest of them All

Well this is the biggest of them all for me personally. Despite being a syphon basher I loved 40s too.

It was big because it was a drop: the duff had its windscreen smashed, the 40 had its second man cab side window also smashed but there were no other type 4s available ( think it ran NB ?)

40170 1N05 2330 Glasgow QS - Inverness, to Perth 26 July 1983

Bradford Bender and co came on at Gleneagles - guess they took the euston -inverness sleeper or a local service or perhaps the edingburgh portion went that way.

40170 was in great nick and gave a superb run, perhaps Peter Walker and Davey Baker in control.

It then worked the down service, piloting a 47 south as far as stirling for the QS-Waverly split at the time.

40 170 down service

Crystal Balling UK Motive Power 2012-2022

Well now you really have to put the final curtain down on the first generation production diesel electrics (c1950-1970). Be Happy! On secluded branch lines their straigth-through decibels will roar on, and you can get involved with their maintainance, maybe even retrain as a driver!

Now the second generation 1970s locos are coming to their swan song too, with re-engining and rationalisation of classes now the way forward.
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So what do I predict in my crystal ball? Will we see a new type three?

The way forward is the old-new way. Trams, zings, call IC125 power cars what you like they saved the credibility of the railway through the 70s and 80s and floated GWRs boat in the 1990s and 00s. Now they are in their swansong, with new power-units. The next thing I predict here is that either class 92s will be hauling them "Under the wires" on the long distance routes using signigicant portions of the West and East CML's, or a dedicated power car being made to be dragged around the extremities and the western region. A move towards a "Unit" based train run with IC 125 power cars is unlilely given HST2 and the current franchise set up ( see my critique of this earlier blogg)

Dual and triple mode ( triple being over head 25kv, third rail and DEMU) multiple units will probably evolve soon in at least cross london guises. Given a real committment in some kind of public-private set up for offering better services while reducing the carbon footprint of those very trains, then this type of unit could find use in many more areas, Scotland , the NW, the branches running off the ECML and of course many cross-pennine services.

New locos? Well we will probably see the new "High" powered, of over 3600 hp and 4000 tonne plus haulage capapbilities coming onto BR; and I would dare to say that we will see the following: the oil sloshing voith maximas
which are actually not really any better than class 60s IMHO. Which brings me to the second: Class 60s with new PUs: either the GM 645 derived unit at its new higher rating, aroudn 3600hp, or the v16 RK215 at over 3600 hp at least. The latter would be the preference of the enthusiast, the former that of the accountants.

At some point we will need to see a replacement for the 57s and 67s in a lighter, better performing locomotive. This is probably some time off, and will take some major in- or de- centive to push the owners off their ageing trash!

As for our old chesnuts, the wonderful type 3s and type two and half "goils". Well this would come down to fuel economy and track access charges legitimising a lighter loco for sub 1000 tonne trains. Also on the topic of fuel economy it may become so expenisve to run locos that using the US / Canadian Robot system where extra power is only taken when needed, may see a return to multiple working. We just haven't seen the type of trains so far that can't be hauled by 66s. This would mean also a diesel-under-the-wires charge coming in so that dragging electric units to places like Lincoln and Sunderland becomes attractive: step in the dual mode train though here!

Type three was great for hauling around 500 tonne frieghts at less than 50mph or 250 to 300 tonne passenger services at up and down to 70mph. These trains still exist, and smaller, but are rare enough not to merit moving away from the EMD- GM monotomy of class 66 and 67/57.

In the future though, the gridlock and the battery car will have us more on trains and rightly so. Rolling on steel rails has always been one of the best transport systems. Don't forget that bitumen is a happy biproduct of the oil industry, and as oil starts to go dry, they will start to make more "coker" products ie broken down bitumen into smaller carbon chains including the octanes we crave. This will excaerbate the cost of driving by making the roads we drive on far more expensive to build and maintain. Road surface makes for poor recycled material, where as track can be smelted and concrete sleepers used in embankements, ships ballast and sea defences.

The new transport model will include little hire electric cars to zoom you around cities and industrial estates from rail hubs, while we will succumb to collective "dial a busses" or "taxi-shares" for many more of ventures over our own thresholds.

All this will mean far more "permanent way" building and upgrading, where a type 3 would be ideal. Also some routes like Barrow, Stranraer, Lincoln-Hull, Scarborough and so on may become more attractive for dragging el-units to, or portions of bigger route trains: a blast from the past!

The Secrets of the Class 37s Success

For the "first generation" of major dieselision, there is no doubt that the EE Type 3, later class 37, was the most successful on many counts, and this is best reflected in their longevity and the usefulness the class offered into the 2000s.

The only other comparable locomotives are ....also English electric, being the venerable 08 and the class 20, although the latter is most often used in pairs, a somewhat wasteful formation both at the time to erradicated steam and later in their lives. However, they too prove to have their niches.

The main failings of the first generation type 4s were the 1CoCo1 wheel arrangement and the overall wieght. Coupled to the class 40 and 44 being underpowered for their intended duties, and the lack of reliability from the class 45, then these locos were a heavy, expensive experiment. The class 46 was reputadely a more reliable unit, as were of course the class 40s, some of which were in completely working order when cut up in 1985-6.

Of the second generation, there were only three classes eventually ordered: 35 being the first, then 47 and 50. Once again it was actually the type 3 which prove to be the most reliable and "designed for task, delivered to design" . Both the 50s and the 47s required extremely expensive refurbishment to overcome their reliability issues, and in effect the 47s in particular did not live up to their design missive.

Brush Traction then had a pragmatic approach to what was still fairly experimental machinery. They had already shown this in re-engining the problematic and underpowered type 2 AIAs, and took a sensible decision to de-rate the new type 4s after rectifiying the terrible problems with the Sulzer units. One of the key issues was most likely caused by sulzer sub contracting production of the LDA series engines out, and thus quality control at various levels was not fulfilled.

In life, however, the sulzer 12LDA twin bank engine prove easy to both rectify and "keep on top of" with regular, specific maintainance. It is a single turbo engine with otherwise good access to components and inspection points. This contrasted with its own cousin, the 12 and 16 LVAs which had "blind" spots in the crank cases which lead to catastrophic failure due to a simple locating pin tool being ill machined! The 12LDA units could be hammered back into service rapidly, and given the amount of idle service duffs seemed to get in some areas when the more powerful 56s and 8s came in or when pairs of class 37s or 31s were needed to start heavy loads the 47 couldn't cope with in its solo existence, then class availability was kept artificially high. A better measure is MPC: miles per casualty, and for the same high speed services as the 50s, the 47s faired no better in fact!

The 47's legacy really lived on because Brush won the lions share of the two next generations of locomotive orders in the class 56 and 60. The nickname "duff" has cast a long shadow in UK locomotive history.

In the mean time however, GEC had gone into Alsthom and had concentrated on mainly AC locos for mainland europe with only relatively small orders for the "prima" units, tha majority of those for France and the UK, with the rebuild of the 333s being just that. It was the USA who had kept advancing diesel loco technology in heavier RA7 + freight locomotives, and actually could offer units down to under 120 tonnes based around the GM 645 line of PUs and CoCo format.

The failure of the 56s to haul the heaviest trains in the UK, lead to the class 59 outshining all but the "tugs" when they came on the scene. Major teething problems once again with the 60s meant that in the soon-to-be private world the EMD class 66 would rule the rails. ( although as a footnote, the USA proiduced Class 70 has had its share of teething problems)

So in a way, the perpetual under-delivery by Brush and compacency by GEC Alsthom opened the gates for the very competent N.American GM-EMD to swing in. WIth the Class 60s likely to be withdrawn or rationalised, we will one day soon see the end of UK produced locomotives on British metals.