Railway Economics and the Failure of the UK Privatisation

There is a campaign group in the UK called 'Bring Back British Rail' - does what it says on the box, so to speak.... Of course many deride this as nostalgia and even a bunch of old communists, but the group is far from being cranks. The UK rail industry has basically failed to improve passenger value via privatisation, due in many observer's opinion to the slighly cowardly decisions made by the John Major government. There was no real element of competition on the majority of routes, while the rail regulator became a toothless paper tiger. Companies exert massively above inflation fair increases, especially for season tickets which are the milk cow for the TOCs in the South East.

Many old timers and Tory true blue believers hark back to the time of the Big Four railway companies in the pre war era, when the glory of private investment, management and market pricing ruled with a whisp of steam and the smell of grease and burning coals. GWR, SE, LNER and LMS. To a small extent some of these routes and passenger lines were reborn into private monopolies of course. Only now they are not monopolies. Back then in the late nineteenth to mid twentieth century, the railway was a virtual monopoly in several different markets for getting from A to B efficiently. Private cars were expensive relative to average incomes, and not very reliable per hundred mile travelled, with short distances for services relative to today. Roads suffered from being based often on the old radial routes which connected towns and villages to the metropolises with many junctions at each node. Pre motorway commuting must have been a nightmare, despite there being relatively few cars on the road. What the big four had was a monopoly on fast, affordable transport for both passenger and freight in their respective regions or corridors ( freight being not really considered here in particular as the market to some extent is more competitive)

Looking back at the big four is using both rose tinted spectacles and also a good deal of naive, wishful thinking on how such a set up could exist today. The Uk in particular is littered not only with relics of the Beechings related cuts, but also old private lines which went bankrupt. By the late 19th century, Railways in the UK had become the internet of their day. This is a more literal relation than you may at first think, because railways facilitated much of the transport in the economy and rapid movement of mail and money. Like the internet, the sector became a bubble which burst and dozens of small railways went bust and either succumbed to being part of the big 4 under the 1921 railways act,  or simply dissoleved into being mere farm tracks.

One other legacy of the huge confidence of investors in the late 19th century followed by a more look warm scenario into the 20th century was that a huge deal of the track bed and even track itself, the very infrastructure, was Victorian and remained so during WWII. Longevity or durability is not unique to the railway, but a rather spartan attitude was taken to rail replacement. As late as the 1960s when the 3300 hp deltic fleet were introduced to operate at 100mph, there were still several sections of the East Coast Main Line which were basically victorian and demanded a 30 mph speed limit.

Post war on the one side the railway was of course bombed and so on, but also much of it was neglected and in a dire state. Given the repair bill and the debts acrued during the requistion of the railways in the 1940s, nationalisation was the only real means of progress to avoid a total financial and service collapse.

Nationalisation involved changing things....not very dramatically at first. The Great Western Region and Southern Region carried on under much the same management structures as before. Scotland became a natural region as did the old LNER mainstay of the east coast, while the west midlands and north west followed after a mix of London Midland and Scottish and LNER, with Midland region taking the north home counties and middle bits towards derby, Nottigham and Brum.

  Regionality removed large amounts of competition but at the same time there were some routes of course which were still rivals. Some Southern Region routes competed with GWR routes into London for commuters, and indeed the SR  Exeter route at one point was quite competitive in journey times to the Bristol route. The main competition was of course between the three main north - south arteries of ECML, WCML and Midland Line, with the later being somewhat sidelined with the restrictive size of St Pancreas compared to the new Euston and Kings Cross stations.

Through the sixties and seventies, the two main routes to Scotland competed for the cash income of those travelling to and from terra caledonia. The aforementioned Deltic services to Scotland and the NE, were actually a planned stop gap before the envisaged electrification of the line, while of course the WCML was electrified with overhead 25 kv lines progressively through to completion to Glasgow Central in 1974.

The post war infrastructural renewal aside, these routes in particular were expected to pay their way forward and contribute profitably in both freight and passenger income to the Railway. It could be said that both routes had their hayday in the late 1970s when intercity 125 sets on the ECML were operational and the fastest expresses on WCMl made london in under fiver hours from Edinburgh and Glasgow respectively. The Railway was most concerned about competition not from at that time flights but from of course motorways.  To extend the utility of the major WCML route, with its larger coverage or interconnectivity of major connurbations when compared to the ECML, the corporation for want of a better term, decided to adapt trains to the curves and came up with the revolutionary APT which has influenced and been largely copied by tilting train designers the world over, and influenced much of the advanced speed of 140mph run for some years on the ECML.

The class 370 prototype fleet, a kind of beta test of its day, were only reallly let down by three factors, two of them to do with private suppliers letting them down 1) The dynamic braking fluid was not available in time for the winter launch , so there were problems with viscosity and freezing  2) the very basic design of final friction brakes, dating to Rocket type designs, was built with components out of tolerance and just badly made by a private work shop  3) the rate of tilt was shown to induce motion sickness in passengers, somethign which could have been designed out and of course has been for the "pendolinos". 

The six train sets were a proof of concept which had one foot a bit too firmly in prototype land. In any case, Thatcher was keen on selling off British Airways, righly so, and saw that a three hour London to Glasgow rail route would likely outcompete the shuttle with the then hour or so out on the tube or cab ride to Heathrow.APT was shelved, but continued to be an experimental train through to at least 1984. Just over a decade later and Richard Branson was running trains based very much on the design and on the ground breaking operational and safety work the sets provided to the international industry.

The APT aside, British Rail managed several huge achievements. Firstly there was the rebuilding post war and the planning in the 1950s for a modern railway network, the beechings inspired rationalisation in the motor car age, the removal of all steam power by the late 1960s, the achievement of sustainable 100mph operation on WCML and ECML, the rationalisation of the ill concieved purchase of over 40 diesel locomotive types down to less than half tha, the electrifiication of the WCML and the Glasgow metropolitan area, the introduction of the intercity 125 to ECML, WR and later MR, the electrification of  the ECML, sectorisation and increased tractive power for freight, the introduction of efficient third generation diesel and electric multiple units..... The private railway has one main achievement and that is ironically, the introduction of tilting trains to regular passenger services.

Back to economics. We have a history of the British Railways in about four main chunks to date...... which begins with fanfare and a rush to invest in this new means of communication in the Victorian era, followed by the economic realities of what we call today "income model" and actual returns on that investment via capital gains and dividends....then the shake up with WWI when the railway was comandeered for troop and supply chain to armaments and the subsequent 1921 railway "Big Four" act....then WWII and 1947 when the Big Railway was born.....then the ill fated privatisation by the John  Major government.

Ill fated? Oh most definetly on just about every measure of utility to the paying passenger. Also on the frieght side, the private companies received several hundred new locomotives just bought by the public purse, at a knock down rate by accepting also to buy the older locos....which were already by in large rationalised and refurbished from their 1960s over engineered , sturdy design.

The main measures you can look up are grouped as follows, the figures are disputed a bit in terms of what inflation means in the railways and so on, and what constitutes operational subsidy, but this is the score>

1) Passenger Fair Increases Above RPI
2) Seating Capacity over the late 90s to 2008 in particular
3) Punctuality is decreasing now across many TOCs
4) Rolling stock has been replaced at a slow pace as the life cycle of the third generation multiple units, carriages and freight locos comes to an end
5) Public subsidy to the operational railway has increased above inflation
6) Railtrack had to be renationalised and is also a subsidised hole for tax payers money

The unfortunate fact has been clear since before 1900. Railways are very capitally intensive, and it is incredibly difficuylt to get ROI if you dont have a monopoly over not just rail route, but time effective transport in a corridor. This is just not the case for the vast majority of rail routes. How would the 'glorious big 4' have faired with the competition from motorways and later cheap flights ? Train operating companies have had to fall back on three streams of income - the poor commuter, the routes which are faster than flying and driving, and those who cant or wont fly. Beyond this in terms of making a profit, the TOCs need to hunt subsidy, The former of these three
passenger group is a literally captive audience around the Capital. Much of Londons middle class suburbia grew up around the new SE electric railway routes, and people lived within walking distance of a station. Now with conjestion into the capital, these poor blighters are the cash cow of the TOCs. They have them by the short and curlies because if they leave their season ticket year, they risk more conjestion by their own numbers.

There could have been alternative competition based privatisation models, which John Major dared not take up, but we come back to the fact that railways are capitally intensive in terms of rolling stock and track renewal, which are two demands the safety authority must lay down, while there is a finite and often limited capacity at rush hour when most money is to be made in getting people from both near and wide into the metropolii. Competition on routes like deregulating busses, has a market pain barrier which it must go through when less efficient operators fall to the side. There is also a huge degree of either redundancy or just using the same common sub supplier in terms of stabling rolling stock outside peak demand, maintaining rolling stock, and operating staff transport etc, Eventually on a route there would probably be one dominant operator, a single source of all repairs and stabling and a smaller second operator. There would be then a virtual monopoly on many routes where capacity in terms of the lines, terminus platforms and stabling & maintenance does not favour anything near the conditions for a free market.

The concept should not be completely dead, though, even when infrastructure is largely public owned. It is just very hard to make both competition work and to allow for return on investment and dividends without rail route monopolies.

Real Trains for Tommorrow. The Hitachi Super Express - Is this HST-2 ?

Hitachi seem to be rather the Doyen of private rail operators and Network Rail after the success of the Chunnel route 140mph dual electric mode high speed trains. Now they are the builders for the replacement to HST, the venerable intercity 125 and its two re-enigned encarnations. But how will the new train measure up to the legacy of the iconic HST which not only saved the image of BR, but made it a force to be reckoned with into the 1980s before the ideologistic and rather bad privatisation?

Firstly it is a dual mode, or electro diesel with a version which will be ECML electric only and retro de-fitting to that status. This says quite a lot about the betting the government are doing now through the renationalised Network Rail scheme for electrification to Bristol and beyond. Dual mode train sets will be ideal as the wires stretch their way westward, we presume., with the Severn Tunnel being the main question mark for further development into Wales. A dual mode train like this will be able to cover the gap as it declines without the need for time consuming diesel locomotive hook ups, or as would be more likely on today's fragmented and under-resourced railway, passengers being kicked off nice new electric trains and hearded onto what ever was available to bridge the gap. So in comparing it to HST IC 125, then it is so much a different beast and offers such an environmental benefit that it should be a worthy successor, But wil it fulfill either of these two goals in taking over the mantle of high speed, west country and east coast trunk and major branch routes from the IC 125, and is it so Carbon friendly?

Despite the bullshit and misleading comparisons made by some PR companies for the motor & road lobby, carbon emissions and in particular particulate emissions per passener mile are much better for modern diesel trains than car journeys. When you take lack of conjestion and predictable journey times into account, diesel trains are more efficient than buses on similar routes like say London Bristol. Electric trains are way and above that until you get into very high speed trains over over 225 kmh / 140 mph when their use of energy gets heftier. Also of course it can be argued that the source of that power has to be carbon neutral and the building of the train should be low environmental impact. Does a dual mode achieve this in a 125 mph package and the answer is not really but ok, yes a bit.

The reason is that for this train there has been made the choice of using a series of up to 5 underslung power units to be suppied by MTU, now in a quirk of English Industrial Revenge for Ruston Paxmans, are owned by Rolls Royce. These ' power packs' are an inefficient means of deliverying enough power to run at 125 mph as we have already seen with the 220s and the 222s. In HST you have two prime mover, power units in locomotives at each end which weigh only about 74 tonnes. You then have two diesel main tanks, two alternators and power comntrol-supply chains, and two cooling systems per train. Now 5 smaller units equate to more than this because each still has to have fueling, electrical systems and cooling, plus traction motors. The engines to be used are v12 just under a thousand horsepower each, which means that the five will be approximately the same total power as the HST twin power car, head and tail arrangement but with more weight and more points of servicing. You start to understand why the option to de-fit these in light of on going electrification is.

Secondly to this is the performance - even if 25kv wires go out to Cardiff, you will still have significant west country routes to Exeter and Plymouth eventually Penzance, which have many sections of 125mph running. If the option for less than 3600 hp per train set is taken, then on these routes the timetables will be slower than IC125. The full five power pack array along the train will probably get up to around that speed, but there are disadvantages in diluting out power at the kind of output in the 500 to 2700 kw range because you lose amps quicker with less powerful indivdual power units than with larger, torqueyer if that is a word, power units.

On the ECML though with the routes to Hull via Lincoln and perhaps Scarborough and Sunderland/ Middelsborough and other excursions east and west of the main line, this type of train may come into its own because the running on sections off the main line are not all that fast and generally it is judged good business to have quite a few stoppingn stations to widen the catchment per train. The same can also be said of the routes north to Aberdeen and Inverness.

However I think the only border these trains will be crossing is that on the severn river, and not even the proud Cornish border at the Tamar. I think that these trains in their electro-diesel guise will stretch with the wires to Bristol and provide short end services to certainly Cardiff and likely Gloucster and maybe Worcster or Hereford. Unless there is a punative 'diesel under the wires' Eco-levvy then zings will probably continue to run the longer distance services all the way to Paddington. The new trains and their private owners are far too good for Northerners and Socialist Scots, so the Tories will be pleased to see them running privately into London terminii, while the North of the UK get well, Glasgow Edinburgh via Falkirk G , maybe even not now, and "Northshire" gets rid of its pacers, presumabkly with old sprinters from somewhere. Finally privatisation will look shiny and good, just turn a blind eye to the subsidies being way over what was paid to BR in the 1980s.

The new . sleek train in my honest opinion has missed two main opportunities. One is that it could have been a tilting train and thus shaved time off twistier routes, or used its horse power and carbon footprint less wastefully by not slowing down and accelerating so much. Secondly it could have had locomotive power cars which would have secured 125 mph and higher speed running while also being even easier to render redundant or move onto other services. Or even repurpose to freight or mixed traffic with twin end cabs if high speed head and tail is no longer needed.

Personally diesel multiple units have always underwhelmed me. Firstly modern design meant that they crammed more passengers into fewer coaches, and then in the 170-182 types, they shoved bikes and wheel chair users into a nasty medley mid train while also providing far too much space to doorways. Secondly of course, they are often irritatingly noisy due to the relatively powerful underfloor engines and their need to be 'trashed' to simply get the train rolling. Compared to the quaint mrk 1 compartment favourites of ours of days gone by (even though we secretly preferred the newer, comfier and often cleaner mark II a and c stock) are just a museum side show now. The gentle click clacking, the subtle tungsten bulb lighting and the partial privacy of the 'compo' were replaced abruptly by the stark strip light open coach of the sprinter on the west highland line and many other routes, together with the irritating burr of those cummin engines making a right meal out of going slower than the loco hauled trains they replaced. DMUs are purely an accountants wet dream, and purely with the bad hindsight of BR having about 20 different diesel locos in passenger service, while the rose tinted foresight of both reliability and passengers liking them. Occupancy is up, but total seating is down. Nearly all timetables I have been on are slower under DMU and seem to be less reliable than under loco hauled. The flexibility of being able to extend services by one coach at a time, or take cheap mothballed stock out  for footexs or super long trains for peak times, are gone, as the private railway has tried to keep its availability low in relation to potential demand, and stick with actual demand. In fact it has been ten years  since I took a diesel train in the UK, having mostly been on electric routes. The last one was either a 182 into london from Slough, or a 170 to and from Aberdeen to Glasgow, the latter being a cramped journey with little comfort in the new seating. My last trip on the WHL was in 2000 when I decided that the bus to Oban and Ft william was more comfortable and pretty much well as scenic than those god awful 156s. I was on a 222 I think up to Leicster and it was suprisingly niosy and cramped too, although it did have rather good ambient lighting. The romance of rail is long since gone for most all travellers, excluding preserved museum type lines, while the very appeal of rail travel in these metro-tram/bus hybrid crosses wanes on me, especially when four of us travelling costs the same as hire car for the week. The lack of main line intergration to Airports is woeful and just pandered to the vested interests for far too long, and exacerbated the move away from rail on the longer routes, at a time when the ECML in particular should have enjoyed unprecedented growth and lower running costs being over head 25kv. The railway , the big railway, has a major part to play in environmentally friendly travel for us all, and it remains to be seen if HST will have a worthy successor

More Tantalus Type Trius.....type 3 fantasy concoctions.

The BTC and BRB got it wholly wrong in ordering so many under-powered type 2 locomotives. You can tell me it is easy to say with hindsight, while at the time there were still many branch lines being operated by tank 'kettles' which required no more than type 2 or even just type 1 power to trundle along with their modestr services. However even at the time in the pilot programme it should have been clear from early experience that main line ambitions for the use of single locomotives really required type 3 and up over. They should have also been able to see the growth in the use of the lorry for light, rural mixed freight as a threat to the smaller tonnages that type 2 were invisaged to operate.

Perrcievere they did though, with huge orders being placed for the sulzer based units which became classes 24 through 27, and you can of course really include the EE type 1 class 20 in their ranks. The farce ran so high as to the re-engining of the brush type 2 "class 30" with a derated SVT engine which would have been between 1500 and 1550 hp standard traction rating for EE. Another arbitary de-rating incidentally was the v16 Maybach fitted in the Hymeks which actually had a standard and proven hydaulic traction rating of 1940 hp, but that was outside the actual type three desirable rating oddly enough. A poorly performing class 40 takes a while before it falls into being a type 3 apparently.

On the one end of events in a fantasy diesel scenario, english electric  would have offered a type 3 during the initial phase of dieselisation in the mid to late 1950s. Thus presenting a rival to the southern regions natty new sulzers, the later to become class 33s. This would have used in a 1956 scenario, the SVT variant of the engine in a body very similar to the eventual class 37, but with disk train indicator system. It would be light enough in design of course to be a CoCo, or potentially an AIA configuration. This loco would have undoubtedly proven its worth, as did the reliable EE engined class 31s, and BRB may have ordered a job lot of them, not being tempted away by the charge air cooled variant which was available from about 1958, essentially when D200 was delivered. However in fact we may then have been stuck with a smaller class of less impressive locos than the class 37, with the 37 maybe never happening until slab front ends came along, if at all.

Already by 1960 EE offered BR an uprated CVST class 40 (probably on CoCo with a medium body length) or the full 2000hp rating of the 12CSVT in the 37 format perhaps as a higher value, shorter maintenance interval loco for the types of express and semi fasts forties were allocated. In fact which ever way you look at it, 40s were a bit quicker on express services of upto 400 tonnes because they have higher gearing, more momentum, ra6 axle loadings and 250 more horse power while actually only hauling an additional quarter of a carriage difference in weight over a 'syphon'. Conversely their high gearing, greater inertia and slower pick up on the power unit via stepped control meant that they were a lot more pedestrian on stopping services where acceleration counts more than performance in the third field diversion.

An early first series dieselisation EE type 3 at 1500/1550 hp would have performed probably very similarly to a class 31 and rather like a sick class 37 ( eg 37108 and 37025 in 1982/84). An alternative to this option at the time of the baby deltic order, would have been a single 18 cylinder deltic lump rated at 1650 hp as it was in 'deltic' at the time, or a fully possible T12 version of the arrangement with turbo. While considering the same body and CoCo configuration of the EE type 3, you could fit a 24 cylinder deltic engine in there, and run as a type 4 with a rating of around 2200hp @1500rpm non turbo. In fact EE could have offered the Syphon G body and bogies as standard with a choice of power units as follows (by 1960):

1) Low maintainance 1500 hp SVT
2) 1500 hp T12
3) 1650 hp deltic 18
4) 1750 hp /1850* hp 12CSVT
5) 2000 hp high maintenance 12CSV
6) 2000hp 16 SVT forty compatible equipment , no boiler
7) 2200 hp T18 deltic
8) 2350 hp / 2700 hp 16 CSVT non bolier, but with ETH

* 1850 hp had been the standard rating for several export versions of the new CVST engine and 1750 was an arbitary down rating from 'full' marine rating of the CSVT in 1959 when the engines were ordered.

I have had a couple of folk state that the v16 would never have been fitted or could never have been fitted into a 'syphon G'. Firstly the size would most likely indeed proclude a boiler, but in fact of course the majority of 37s were delivered "NB" with the stonehouse boilers ordered for them mainly going into Brush type 4s at the time.
As anyone who has been through the engine room of a non boilered (never boilered) syphon will tell you, there is a large plinth of concrete which had to be installed to balance the locomotives in lieu of the boiler. Drivers referred to this as the 'band stand'. People further argue about the weight of a v16 espeically a CSVT version even without a boiler. However just a couple of years later, EE of course produced the Portugues class 1800 which are 108 tonnes, and in fact a 12CSVT was fitted in a 79 tonne meter gauge loco in the late 50s for export. The bogies' would probably need upgrading to class 50 / 55 standard but that is not a great difference in cost given the benefit of having a standard body over several power ratings and units. EE offered basically a stretched class 37 with the CSVT engine  @2350 hp, instead of further orders of the type 4 with 16 wheels. BRB in their folly declined this offer, stating that they wanted to continue with standard locomotives, which with hindsight seems rather short sighted when already the deltics had supplaced the D200s on the key ECML expresses and the ubiquitous 12LDA would push them almost into irrelevance had it not been for the D200s reliability and RA 6 rating. 2350 hp at under 120 tonnes all up weight with EE's higher voltage system favouring total acceleration speed, would have made for an impressive passenger and even heavy frieght (of the day )locomotive, pretty much well as capable as the rather lumbering 'peaks' with their massive tonnage. It has to be noted that Dp2 in fact produced significantly more horse power upto 25 miles an hour or so than a deltic which hauls on one engine up to approximately this speed, and when fitted with the KV10 load regulator, the light weight locomotive ( under 110 tonnes) prove exceedingly competent under taxing gradients and on express services.

Deltic power units would have been prohibitive for a mixed traffic class however due to their disliking for thermal cycling on start-stop services. Any of the above mentioned though would have been a hell of a lot of fun in a 37 body shell, with perhaps the most likely being a T18 being fitted into a sub class for operating lighter services on the WCML ahead of the advancing electrification in the 70s.

Sulzers  Wonderful 8 LDA engine should Get a Word in Edge Ways!!

Yet another rather tantalising option for type 3 fans in the initial period of short batch trials in the late 50s would have been an RA5 dual heat version of the southern region Sulzer type 3. This would have had to have three axeled bogies to accomodate the length and weight the boiler necessitated but it would have probably come in at around the same as the Brush type 2 and the 37. You could envisage this being a very useful bit of kit for depots already home to many 6LDA and 12 LDA locos who required some more grunt for semi fasts, light expresses and medium weight freights. Indeed so useful that an allocation to ScR would probably have negated the need for the reintroduction of the class 37 in the early eighties for the W. highland and Far North routes.

A little known fact I have  mentioned before is that the class 33 is in fact fitted with an engine with the same per cylinder rating as the class 24 and class 26 ie 1160 hp in their case, 1550 for the 33. This means that the loco could have been fitted with the intercooled 8LDA as a variant or from BREL as indeed the 25s and 27s were in effect. At 1700 hp in either a BoBo or on six axles, the loco would have been impressive, and in terms of the former of those two, it would probably have outrun just about anything on the rail network to 20 mph at least.

While on the topic of sulzer and their better power units (the 12LDA and 6 LDA suffering in build quality by them sub contracting out work and getting the whole 2750 hp rating build wrong on the 'duffs') the LVA units prove successful with in particular SNCF. They rated the 12 down to 2200 and even as low as 2000 hp, but there was also a v8 variant which picked up some type three ratings in its somewhat limited application. Given the 12 LVA was rated at 2650 and maybe a max 2750 in SNCF days, the 8 LVA would have come in at around 1800 hp if it was to be used in line with the much debated class '48' duffs which were not so duff. The LVA series was significantly lighter and more modern than the 1930s style twin bank 12 LDA lumps. The wee v8 is not bigger or heavier than in fact the 8 CSVT fitted to the portugeuse and the Irish bobo locos, so it could have been shoe horned into a class 33 shell, or of course just plonked into a class 31 body at least, or  a class 47 body shell to produce an RA 5 type 3 loco.
The 12 LVA sounded like a mad cross between a forty and an HST, whistling at idle and run up before shreiking as the revs came on. The 8 probably was much the same, just a third less so!

Just had a thought, suppose all the duffs were converted to 12 LVAs after the LDA   @2750 failure, and then say type two body shells are used with the v8, which would stll allow for room for the boiler?  The 8 LVA could then in theory be rated at upto 2000 hp being half a kestrel in practice. Presumably also a straight eight version could have been available with a rating above 1700hp. Essentially it is a very different engine, more so than say the RK 6 shunter EE unit is to the eventual 'slug' 6RKT.

While on air charge cooling, BRB could have thrown out their silly ideas of using the SVT further down rated and demanded that brush present a new loco to take the now proven 12 CSVT / probably a CoCo version of the 31. Ludicrous:? Well the class 47 very nearly had a cousin or contender which would have had the 16 CSVT engine in it as stipulated by BRB.

Beyond 1000 rpm......

The one higher speed engine tantalus I think many would like to have seen on BR, would be the diesel electric version of the Hymek. I rather think this may have been kept bobo but run without a boiler to keep weight down, but a CoCo would have been RA5. The germans ran at least one class as a variant to their populace v16 maybach single unit locos and they prove as reliable.

On to another new option is that by the mid 1960s Paxman were able to offer their v16 at over 2000 hp and their v12 was probably rateable at a type three level by then, soon to be included in the prototype HST at a higher again rating in the ventura v12 format. They had been run at this time in high thermal cycling environments being fitted to the ScR class 29, which achieved a reliability akin to other sulzer type 2s allegedly with these new power units replacing the NB built MAN designs. I rather like the idea that WR never had to get rid of their oil sloshers and that they ordered a fully british ventura v12 based type 3 AIA loco with dual brakes and an auxially diesel generator to take hydraulics into the 1980s and beyond. While ER would take a bobo type three to work end to end on sleeper services on the ECML and potentially on the freightliner container services during the daytime. A fully rated version then being used as a recovery loco for failed HSTs and other express trains on the ECML.

Finally while on the WR, it seemed odd that no one came up with a twin engined type 3 with two 800/900 hp units in it working two torque convertor transmissions, thus allowing for 1. redundancy / limping home or working light services on on PU. 2) piggy backing at gear changes as the westerns did, one bogie continuing in drive as the other declutches and changes gear.

Crazy, or the Brush of a Pen Stroke Away?

Of all these crazy notions what do I think the most likely to have ever seen the light of day been?

Top runners for production classes would actually have to be none of my favourites per se but>

short production runs and prototypes

1500hp early disk display syphon 12 SVT
1650 hp deltic syphon trial Deltic 18
2200 hp deltic syphon trial T18
1600-2000hp twin engined DH or DE on bobo

production

1500hp AIA class 31s / a silly 30 hp short

1700 hp Class '34' 8 LDA SR / WR ETH loco

1600/1800 hp v 12 Ventura single unit Bo Bo Diesel Hydraulic

1600 / 1800 hp ""    ""    ""    ""     "" 

Why these into production?  Well the first one is a no brainer, it was either an arbitary derating to conform to type 2 banding or Brush could have been asked to tweak 14 kw more out of their electric transmission without having bust a gut.

Also the second one seems to be the most likely of any sulzer option because 1( the 33s were successful early on 2) BR liked the straight LDA format a lot in its air charged cooled variant, they had hundreds and hundreds of the darn things and parts are largely standard to the 12 LDA. It could have ended up in an extention to the 33 order or in say a BREL AIA streched class 25. IMHO there should have been wide scale cancellation of all these vermin and upgrading to either the 8LDA or moving over to ruther orders for 12 CSVT.

I think also that an early to mid sixties vision of the folly of type 2 while the success of the paxman in the warship showed the way, an alternative to the v16 maybach may have arisen in a v12 1500 hp / 1800 hp ventura, thus allowing for the class 52 to be a true type 5 and 100mph operator by using twin venturas and thus making a standard set up for the higher horse power locos in these two brackets, with the Maybach and MAN warships scheduled for retirement or reeingining with the venturas over time.  A V12 ventura is probably also ligher than the Hymeks v16 so that they could be weighted down as an RA 5 loco.

DE ventura based versions may have come later either via the class 29 experience or by the HST programme and proposed tail/end freightliner high speed container services.

If you think any of this is really so very crazy, super deltic single unit syphon included at the fringe end, then think again about what the BTC / BRB actually did. It ordered the CoBos and the Baby Deltics. It allowed western region to have completely non standard locos to the rest of the system and little standardisation within those! It stipulated that locomotives which could have been built to 119 tonnes (class 40) and 128 tonnes (peaks) should be instead fitted with vastly heavy plate sided 1Co-Co1 bogies to 'spread the weight'. Superdeltics were on the drawing board. Deltic HST power cars were also penned with this  2200hp T18 in them.  A class 30 was uprated to 2000 hp experimentally with air charged cooling. EE built the C1800s for Portugal at 108 tonnes......

Why Was Truth Stranger than (my) Fiction?

The real problem was two fold. Firstly BTC/BRB rushed over the evaluation phase of the initial prototypes and first series of orders. Technology had also moved forward, basically all the first phase locos were about 1953 technology, while the big advances in air charge cooling came into effect in 1956-1958. Other major advances such as the KV10 load generator and more reliable high speed engines filtered through just a few years later in the early to mid sixties. The left had of the BTC knew fine well that the motorways and four axle truck were going to take light freight off the branch line connections, while the railway side seemed to bury their head in historic figures of light trains needing tiddly little 1000hp to 1250 hp to tinker around with them. They should have seen that the US style of multiple heading was wasteful for the UK system in light of this with type 2s being redundant in their youth,  and opted for more type 3s and 4s. They should have waited longer before ordering classes and stipulating power bands, in order to evaluate types and horse power ratings, while also considering the market for rail transport, in particular the type of frieght which would remain competitive and the emergence of containerisation.

In a sensible world, we would have had CoCo forties and peaks and a lot more syphon Gs and 'bean can' 33s. The uprated 2750 hp 12 LDA should have been rejected upon extended trials of a dozen or so units in favour of the 12 LVA or the 16 CSVT. We would have seen continuing work to uprate the deltic engine in the early 60s to allow for 3800 hp operation with ETH generation in the fleet and for the superdeltic to tackle the WCML and presumably follow the route to displace westerns on the WR. We should have seen uprating trials with the 2000hp v12 CSVT and the 2350 hp v16 for the orders of class 40s post 1960. A full prototyping should have been undergone for the D400 before they were ordered, and the class be standardised to the less out landish equipment with normal oil wetted air intake filters. And we should have seen a fleet of kestrels too on the v16 LVA running express trains in the forefront of expanding electrification and standard 120mph running on most major routes.

Business wise they should have indeed focused on two or three power unit types ( variants with common cylinder and piston units and other common items) from two or three manufacturers, and in terms of worrying about  competition in british industry, directed that primary contractors like BRCW and EE sub contract some components and building of structures to smaller firms like Bayer Peacock and the likes. They could have focused on a big three manufacturer route, those mentioned above, plius BREL when the offering or capacity could not be found. The BTC/ BRB could alternatively have stipulated supply of power units from two or three sources ( sulzer, EE/ruston-paxmans, Maybach Licencee in the UK) with different work shops assembling units, but really that is just not as desirable as a prime design house who create fuilly integrated machines. A counter agrument would be the Class30 to Class 31 upgrade, or the fact that the 6LDA locos could be built to very similar quality over many different workshops, or that EE used RSH for a very large proportion of their capacity outside the Vulcan productiuon.

Today we have not really any less of a crazy situation because rail operators and rolling stock owners invest so sporadically and in self interest that they loose much of the opportunity and will to standardise. New and rather ludicrous emissions standards exclude many from the market for power units which can fit into a loco while being clean enough. The future is uncertain, but without government legislation or a return to more public control and ownership it is unlikely that the nirvanna of standardisation will ever be reached.

Why was 2000 bhp a bridge too far for the EE type 3?

The class 37 was often proposed under powered by type 4 fans, but in fact of course it prove to be a very good horse power rating in keeping the fleets reliability up, and rendering their longevity only as finite as the HGR avoiding private owners would allow. At various points in the 1960s and 70s they hauled the heaviest and longest frieghts in the UK, in multiple admittedly, while also turning out for fairly racey diagrams on the non stop summer Skegnes services amongst others, even working the famous 1S45. However an uprated version of the locomotive was of course not just proposed, but also tried out.

The irony is not lost on us that the original EE general arrangement drawings of the Type 3 (evt Class 37) included a position for a secondary diesel generator, thus rendering the class with dual heat potential on outset. By the mid sixties though, EE were confident enough to offer the loco as a 2000hp performer in a new, flat end cab version similar to the 2050bhp export models which went to the then East Africa. BRB at the time were wise enough to know they were onto a good thing, with type 2s proving underpowered and various lesser types already earmarked for the scrap heap as "non standard".  So the final order for 37s remained standard and some of the best examples of their class to my experience, rolled off the assembly lines in 1964 and 65. Amongst them was one example which would go on to be fairly infamous. 37 292.

I have the pleasure of being hauled by the beast, all be that it was somewhat underperforming, running unevenly on idle and not opening up completely. It did whizz along the Kilmarnock to Ayr route, and further to Stranrær, which in any other year than 1984 would have been a rarity for a 37 in itself!

Scottish depots were pretty bad at under maintaining locos given the demands of damp, occasionally salt water laced conditions, icy and greasy rails and more than a fair share of gradients, curves and variable speeds. It seems 37292 was in a state of "returning soon to works, don't spend any money on it" at ML in 1984 unfortunately. It worked a few times that summer out of Glasgow central, with perhaps only a handful of other passenger workings in the period 1981-83 as a break down recovery loco. Perhaps due to this latter day unreliability, it remained probably the "largest" syphon on ML shed through 1984 and prior to its long booked return to works for HGR and "four-ing" in 1985. (37 137 and a 200 series being pretty rare out on seated rolling stock too it has to be said)

As I blogged before, the evolution of the CSVT to to the RK traction took a little back water via Australia and also 47 601/901. The maximum rating of a "csvt" badged v12 is 2350 b.h.p. in Aus, and despite a single turbo being employed, they still sound decidely CSVT and not V16 jumbojet like. The aussie engine was probably a metric one, but possibly did not get gear driven cams- so together with the thoarty, pulse type turbo exhaust roar then we can presume that this is as far as the CSVT got.  2000 hp was enough out of a v12 from EE/ GEC until 47901 reared its ugly head!


Reports on the electric internet show us to 1981 as the year that a very nicely prepared EX works 292 exited Doncaster on a test train. Given that ETH'ing was carried out toute suite in 1985, then a two year test and evaluation period plus then a two year planning and material procurement period seems about right for 1980s Britain.



It has been said that the alternator alone contributes about another 100 hp efficiency to the system, and with the lower CP4 gearing chosen, the need for 2000hp and possibly a shorter service interval was considered avoidable.  A single 37/4 could be used to pick up the aluminium ingots train at Corpach as against a pair of "zeros" and acceleration on passenger services was by in large not much different, even when producing ETH. Top speed on the other hand.....

 In standard rating the welsh depots and Stratford could keep well on top of valve and timing chain issues with preventative servicing. Miles-Per-Casualty would be interesting to compate with 31s and of course much better than 47s which broke down a lot, having never been able to handle their class wide uprating. So probably a very wise choice to stick to the lovely 1750bhp.

Twin Engines Drone and Whine Again? The Shape of Diesels to Come

The latest round of locomotive developments seem to be in part at least, back to the future. This is in terms of locomotives returning to higher speed engines , once shunned in favour of 'mid' speed , marine derived power units. Also we have seen a fragmentation of new types of locomotives, post the mass public purchase of the Class or Type C 66 as it is known across Europe. Quite a few of these have been diesel hydraulic too, especially from Vossloh and indeed Voith of course with their monster.

It seems that there is a new king and queen in the power unit world and they are both v16s with the choice of either Caterpillar from the USA or MTU from the father land. In rail application they run about the same rpm with the former being quoted as having a higher output. It is presumed by the Author that in fact mid speed engines from MAN group, EMD, and GE are no longer in favour due to emissions profile, higher rpm seems to then suit  better combustion in smaller cylinderr volumes. Taking this to its extreme the interesting rival from Seimens, the Traxx loco, takes a completely different approach by utilising not just two but up to five power units of presumably automotive origin or smaller industrial marine type diesels, or perhaps based on static generators.

The concept here being that of each power unit is working most of the time at above 80% output when engines are allegedly at their most efficient. You then dial in extra power units as the demand increases. This is no crazy idea because once a load ie train, is started and taken up to a speed of between 40-80kmh it requires far less kilowatt power to maintain rolling, given light gradients of less than 1/110 say. Also a bug bear for low carbon emissions is running empty trains, many of whose rolling stock is restricted to a top speed unloaded of under 120kmh. Some rostered container diagrams vary greatly in actual tonnage to be transported, yet the driver has the same diagrammed time to hold to despite being able to go faster with a better power to weight ratio. Power units of the mid type are as I say allegedly not very efficient below 80% max rpm, but that was probably not the case for the ruston SVT and CSVT whose smallish , multiple turbos provided good fuel economy when only 50% power was demanded.

Given that a major global player in the market, Siemens, is now pushing multi power units as a solution and no doubt presenting lots of figures in endless powerpoint slides to support their teutonic assertions, then it seems inevitable that other loco manufacturers and PU producers will offer the same, most likely in a two or three unit solution.

Post war, the Deutsche Bahn took almost exclusively a ' high speed' motor option with hydro/mechanical transmission. Faced with a very similar practical limit for single drive in the 1950s as with generators,  they twinned up with the famous v200 series of locomotives, which influenced of course the BR Western Region most, but is of course a daily fact of life on the remaining high speed diesel lines in the UK, where Intercity 125 HSTs operate with two power cars, effectively a twin engined system. Deltic and Falcon were in the bidding too, but limitied to only 24 locomotives out of many thousands of diesel electric, single power unit locos (ignoring the ill fated 'Claytons' )

In the 1950s then the transmissions only handled about 1.3 kw / 1800 hp of output, with perhaps the best generators from Brush taking towards 1.8. So BR twinned up for their premier high speed passenger routes where 2000 hp was just for starters, they needed really '3000hp under the bonnet' . DB went a little further than BR of course by using twin v16s in the infamous DH4000, v320 which is a mighty bit of oil sloshing kit, being uprated to 3800 hp and still running today in contrast to the single venture prototypes of BR days. The v320 is fitted with twin v16s as against the v 12s of the BR DH and DE 125s . The D1000 'Western' class should have surpassed the performance of several type 4 DEs of the time, but the Voith gearing in the triple convertor was a little high at the top end for the v12s, presumably this hydraulic gearbox was the same as fitted to the v320. It is also revealed now for posterity that Falcon, with the same power units but DE drive was superior in the lickey bank trials. It wouold be interesting  to have seen westerns fitted with either 1) Hymek transmissions, with gearing tailored to the engine output  2) the v16 Maybach/ MTU as choice.

DB moved away from twin units quite quickly into the 1960s with the v160 type, fitted with a single v16, and only odd and shorter lived flirtations with a secondary power unit.  DB found out of course my own contention that type three power , 1.3kw, was adequate for the typical 300 - 600 tonne trains of the day, and of course today passengers are no heavier, while freight can be handled by multiple locomotives. Later of course there was the demand for ETS (ETH as it used to be called) and trains which were yet faster than steam, so fortuitously MTU could offer far more power from the same footprint v16 over time and the v160 type evolved and dominated much of western german loco hauled transport through the 1960s and 70s.

DB later favoured single power unit locomotives with the v16 in DH going up to 2700hp while then more powerful DE locos were introduced in the late 60s and onward. The same is actually not true in Britain, where firstly IC 125 units are essentially dependent on two power cars, and then of course there was all and sundry rubbish of multiple units with several power units per train. Also DH transmission is by in large restricted to sub 100 mph operations for some reason, but is very useful for lifting heavy loads on gradients and can produce a lighter power car / loco for any given horse power.

In the 1950s the attraction of twin engines was not only overcoming the limitations of transmissions, but also provided a means of redundancy ie back up in break down of one PU or drive system. Back then it was also conceived that single power unit operation on lighter trains or slower sections was perhaps desirable. Indeed Deltics allegedly ran North of Edinburgh on one power unit to Aberdeen as a matter of routine to save on engine hours and probably fuel too. The NBL warships had early reliability issues with their power units, so redundancy helped GWR a bit at least. Wwith subsequent twin engine locos all the way to the hst and its notorious mid eighties reliability issues caused mostly by cracked alloy turbo casings, there is a means of limping home or at least running off the main section before the need for another loco and multiple knock on details on the blocked line.

An internesting historical bit of politics about twin engined trains was that the hst protoype was launched to the public at large, the promotional film was edited carefully to only show a single, leading power car. This was because it was the beginning of the early 1970s oil crisis, and two thirsty power units may have not gone down well during petrol rationing and power cuts. Back to the future once more, fuel costs and taxation rising and te desire for a lower CO2 profile for rail travel, just as with all others. It is a little infair in both respects here. Firstly to do 125mph with a 300 tonne train gross weight, you need 4000hp and then you need another 500 for 'head supply' ie heating, lights, aircon', kettles,  and auxilliary loco supply like compressors. Secondly how many car joiurneys saved in the last 40 years since ic 125 came into service?  ....with congestion at Sheffield, N. london or Birmingham rendering them much longer and less environmentally freindly.

Now uk rail on diesel lines is 99% mutliple  power units. They are being used in the wrong way though. One per carraige often. There is the inevitable loss of efficiency in each transmission, heat inefficiency, and also weight inefficiency due to many duplications of auxilliary equipment. In the three car single unitary train, this is actually arguably less notable while when you reach Six or nine cars you are more efficient again with one or two powerunits in a loco or hst style  power cars according to some work done by Virgin trains.

The future  looks to the past then but also to the mistakes. Take for example HSTs- ruston paxman delivered high powered yet light V12 valentas. They took on a missive for long distance super expresses, non stop  with crew changes under way via the communication doors at the back of each power car. By time of operation, BR had some clowns in their planning dept who decided trains should stop far more often in order to serve a bigger overall potential market per sevice. In one fail swoop they blighted the reliability of the design, and also dammed BR to semi stoppers and journey times often comparable only to normal  car journeys door to door.  Also while on this specific train-set, they are quite heavy all up and the driving style from a standing start seems to use a lot of energy up getting off their marks, reaching the first electrical gear change with both locos having been run up to near full power. It would seem that v200/western system would be preferable, where only one changing at a time maintains tractive power and hence momentum

There in lies what the usa with conrail and private operators have done with the longest trans rocky mountain freights and dial on power units in 'robots' along the arrangement. Computers have been assisting this since the 1980s. Route mapped performance and power demand is still in its infancy in the uk, where shorter sections between signals and congestion may seem to negate their use. However trains still need to accelerate, cruise and deccelerate. Now they have to keep the Kyoto men happy with co2 output though.

So the body of work is all their in the annals of dieselisation, now we have the technology to move forward, twin engines or not......just one step ahead of the 25kv overhead lines.....

HS2 Sums Not Adding Up for the Passenger

High Speed 2 is upside down in development and fundamentally bad for the midlands and north of UK. Phase one which is realistically all that is politically committed to so far, is basically about delivering more skilled workers to London,. and admitting defeat as to the Midlands being an area for development of financial services and corporate head offices. It is a big ADSL link - asymetric in passenger traffic, assymetric in brain drain.

London centricity on public spending is then maintained by the leverage all the up-for-grabs and marginal seats in the South East which is unfortunetly all that UK politics has been about until the last 18 months with the rise of the SNP and UKIP as major powers, and the inevitability of coalition governance and possible proportional representation. Labour have given up canvassing in many of their traditional areas in favour of geotargeting and social media, which they will pay for in the next election just as much as the backlash against on the one side Austerity and meagre pay rises, while on the other the island monkey drift to UKIP at all levels of society, notably top and bottom.

Why is this an assymetric link? Quite simply the laws of natural competition and the labour market. The South East has never had the mass unemployment and uncomfortable de-industrialisation the midlands and especially the North of Britain endured in the late 70s through to the mid 90s. There is low unemployment amongst British ethnic adults. Wages for skilled labour are significantly higher, with a natural London Weighting in order to attract and retain staff in the region with some of the highest house and rental prices in the EU. The midlands / north have lower pay, lower prospects for promotion, less job security and higher unemployment. You just are not going to get skilled workers from London to travel daily north in any large numbers, and given there is then a further drain on resources south, what would business advisers and potential investors travel north to?

HS2 is an admission of defeat - that government cannot stimulate the economy north of Watford Gap and is powerless on this apart from giving a massive injection to of public money to what will be a privately run railway monopoly. You could say that it is petrol on the flames of London overheating too, a sub prime investment as a sticking plaster for the north, upturning the perception of the SE being the only place worth locating service, financial companies  and national or EU Head Quarters to, or investing in.

There may be a slow 'trickle up' north where by investment skills and networks move north with people's inevitable desire to live nearer their workplace and have less time commuting. But if you live within 20 minutes of the new stations then you are quicker to a job in the city or west end even that if you had to use the m6 through 'Brum' at rush hour. Like the rail routes of the late 19th and third rail radial routes built between the wars, London gets a new commuter belt.

Also you have to then ask, what good is this for the economy? What will all these new investment experts be investing in?  Well the jobs down south will not be in value adding manufacturing, more likely riding the next wave of consumer credit, house price -mortgage fuelled lending and hedge fund speculation. At the end of the day, Britain needs to create fundamental value and use oil revenues to rebuild the UK on small to medium , high growth, high qaulity, unglamerous companies and the skills and local infrastructure they need.

Electro Diesel Tantalus

Maybe it is just a crossed wire shortcircuiting my memory, but I have a lasting image of an electro-diesel deltic in my old railway memories from a general arrangement drawing, an outline sketch and no more, of an EE half an half.

Even by 1958 it was clear that the deltic with a turbo T18 engine could deliver traction rated power of 2200hp in a very light weight package per power unit, and so using the other engine bay completely for electrical AC equipment and replacing the radiator group at that end with a pantograph.

From EE this would have been in AC form a 3300 bhp continuous output loco with the aforementioned DE mode being ample for dragging 700 tonne trains from the freight rail head, or running 400 tonne passenger expresses beyond the wires of the West Coast Mainline.

Of all power units, the deltic at that time was the only one capable of providing such an enourmous power output per tonne of loco, and basically in being part of the only viable dual mode main line, express speed locomtoive at the time and for the following ten years with the advnet of the high powered valenta.

Why then did this never come to fruition or beyond a sketch?

There are several reasons for this, but basically the need was probably not that well defined at the BTC /BRB. Branch lines were  by  in large not envisaged for electrification and certainly not many railheads to freight customers. Electrified mainlines though were very much in the plan for a new british railway. Back then we had a different outset than we have today, where trains were still largely marshalled and apart from some coal pit to smelter/power station loads, this meant that several locomotives would be involved with type 1,2 and lower powered shunters haulinbg to the big marshall yards which still stand idle today in a few places like north of Carlisle.

Deltic itself was a ten year 'stop-gap' measure prior to the planned electrification in the late 1960s of the ECML, which ahem meant that the drone of twin napiers went on for another whole decade and was replaced for almost another whole generation by the shrill whine of the IC 125. In another slight irony, deltics in the days of steam heat fairly often ran to Aberdeen on one engine norht of Edinburgh with the slack sections of Fife hardly warranting 3300 hp while perhaps engine hours could be kept down in this way a little. Thus for the reach north as electrification stretched ever more towards Carlisle and Glasgow Central, a dual mode deltic could have provided a reasonable performer even at the non turnbo 1650 bhp rating of a single PU in a dual mode loco.

Another reason there were not more dual mode locos in the first two phases of removing steam locomotion, was that there was rationing of many materials to industry in post war 1950s Britain and for some military materials like aluminium, this went onto the 1960s.  Also back then the 25kv AC locos were still not fully proven and perhaps the electrical systems would have had trouble in rectifying and transforming down to the amp /volt ratings of the same traction motors as run by the DE output, I would have to have a check on the types used.

Economics played the part in the expense of proving such a loco, although the successful class 73 demostrates the usefulness of dual mode locos,. in fulfilling different roles even when one of the modes becomes periodically obsolete due to lack of demand or other traction being available or multiple units replacing loco hauled. They find new routes, new types of trains and so on.

Economics foresight should though have played a far bigger part in railway planning, and in fact the nearest we came to an economically self sustainable railway was the full might of Dr. Beeching's dreaded proposals. Wage rises, fuel prices and the accession of freight to long haul road, and personal transport to small affordable commuter cars,  on the motorway network could have all been predicted and acted upon  by 1960 even.

In harder nosed BTC/BRB relationship, the dual  mode deltic could have had a place, as haiuling direct trains to an dfrom railhead to the AC trunk routes and making trains more economic in terms of tractive power allocation, train crews and size of minimum and maximum load tacklable economically. BR missed out on this trick, while the French and Germans did not, and modernised towards larger customers and larger road/to/rail transfer depots, reducing the amount of martialling. In the UK it just died a death with the advent of the tent sided 20 tonne lorry, and later of course, container and tanker traffic to 38 then 40 tonnes.

There have been two big game changers since then in the railway and freight in particular. Firstly, it has remained and expanded its economic superiority to road in large point to point volume freight, and secondly there is now the Channel Tunnel. Now we have super/marhsalling and private railheads acting on behalf of other end users in transfer to road or even in co-location of factories or warehouses to the railhead.

The next game changer is the cost of fuel and price then per mile of in particular, container and small container traffic, and soft sided domestic market containers. Also UK companies will be looking to continue to use scale to competitive advantage and also to supply more to europe as the main market. Added into this is the potential move to several more 'deep' water container terminals, in the SW of England, Hunterston and Aberford in Wales, where monster ships bigger than the 120,000 t "panamaxes" will be able to connect with europe, save a day's sailing and even maybe  these will be too big to pass through the shallow english channel at all but spring high tides of a SW swell!

With that type of traffic then a type 3 or just 4 dual locomotive seems a bit underpowered, but dont forget that shunters used to handle trains at low speed from railhead to main line siding. Much of that operation is over with class 66s doing shunts on whole trains and there just being gaps when there was not enough cargo to fill a train rather than the expense of martialling. However then the expectations today are to be able to lift a 2000 tonne train and tommorrows railway will probably be looking at 3000 tonne trains from large scale plants or to distribution centres in order to be most economic. Then you need specialist traction, the heavy diesel type 5 and type 6. This is still why there is so much diesel under the wires, because there is a shortage of electric locos and no real incentibve for using two train crews.

Trains though of 500 tonnes, not forgetting that is upto 20 or 30 lorry loads may become more economic if they are point to point or transconintental, or in plkaces where rail is as fast as road or faster, but much more reliable. Take the tesco use of the highland line, these are only a few hundred tonnes of net freight in the kighter services.

Now it becomes clear that the real use of a dual locomotive for tommorrows railway would not be in frieght necessarily. More likely to be in passenger, where trains of upto 600 tonnes can be managed admirably with less than 2500 bhp and on semi fast routes, 1650 hp would be enough. Deltic through is for now too smokey, so we woul d be looking at the now MAN owned VP series which replaced Valenta , with v6,8 or 12 configuratiion most appropriate.

There are some engine techmoligists researching opposed piston engines for some odd reason, they have mayve kidded themselves on that they are so much simpler that there must be a way of getting them to work within modern emissions demands, and they are allegedly looking into car engine sized opposing four and six piston units in diesel.  How they will overcome the inherent smokey issues is yet to be seen. IT could all be like the last great experiment in the 1990s into two stroke, supercharged engines by ford which lead to zero point zero products and profits.

Dual mode in both locos and passenger multiple units is very attractive too either if privatisation is opened to real competition between companies for diagrams on the same routes, whereby those willing to invest in dual mode will gain most on winning cross power source routes or be able to employ their rolling stock on alternative contracts if they do not win their first choice from the list.  There  is also talk of an under/the(wires levvy for diesel trains in order to encourage use of electric locos or dual mode stock.

On "BR" today even the latest electric locomotives in network use, the class 92 are arguably coming to the end of their economic and safe lifespans. Class 66s are in need of heavy general repair , and the class 60s have already been rationalised. The remaining second generation locos , 47s , 56s and 57s are passed their use by date well and truly. If all pre 1995 ie now two decade old stock and older, was removed then the railwya would run to a hault in terms of passenger services.

There will be some dual and even multimode trains, multiple units and dragged electric loco set ups in the near future, but will we ever see a mainline dual mode Diesel Electric/AC Electro or DC thrid rail?