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B.R. Class 41 'Warships' class

Discussion in 'Diesel & Electric Traction' started by neildimmer, Jul 14, 2017.

  1. neildimmer

    neildimmer Resident of Nat Pres

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    The British Railways Class 41 diesel-hydraulic locomotives were built by the North British Locomotive Company in Glasgow during 1957 and 1958. Although they were withdrawn before TOPS was introduced, British Rail classified them as Class 41.[1] All were named after Royal Navy vessels, hence the nameplates each bore a subtitle "Warship Class".
    The fleet was ordered by the British Transport Commission as direct comparison with British Rail Class 40, and were not actually wanted by the Western Region, who preferred their production fleet of D800 Warships. The D600s were the result of power politics within the BTC and the WR: the former was unwilling to sanction radical, stressed-skin lightweight construction locomotives at the time, while the latter was equally insistent that at least some of the new Type 4 power range locomotives on order be equipped with hydraulic transmission. They were much heavier than production Warships (almost 120 long tons (122 t; 134 short tons) compared to 80 long tons (81.3 t; 89.6 short tons)) and can be regarded as standard 1950s British design diesel locomotives that just happened to contain two lightweight, high-revving diesel engines coupled to hydraulic transmissions rather than one large, slow-revving diesel engine and electrical generator set. For this reason they were practically obsolete in design terms before they had left the drawing board.
    D600 was officially completed on 25 November 1957 but was not handed over to BR until that December. Some trial runs with passenger coaches were done in south-west Scotland before D600 was allocated to Swindon in January 1958. A press run was arranged for 17 February 1958 when D600 hauled a 340-ton train between London Paddington and Bristol Temple Meads with stops at Reading, Didcot and Swindon. The twin engine reliability came in handy when one of the engines cut out soon after leaving Bristol on the return run; the last 100 miles (160 km) back to London were on one engine only.
    D601 appeared in March 1958 and was also initially allocated to Swindon. By June 1958, both were based at Plymouth Laira and D602-D604 were then allocated there from new.
    Entering service between January 1958 and January 1959, the class initially worked on the London-Plymouth-Penzance route of the Western Region. On 16 June 1958 D601 hauled the Cornish Riviera Express non-stop from Paddington to Plymouth—the first diesel locomotive to do so. The maximum permitted loads for a D600 on such a run were 375 tons (381 tonnes) westbound (climbing the 1-in-37 of Dainton Bank, west of Newton Abbot, and up Hemerdon Bank's 1-in-42 in the opposite direction). The D600s continued on the fast Bristol/West of England trains until a dozen D800 Warships had been accepted into service. Later they were largely restricted to the line west of Plymouth, finally being withdrawn en bloc in December 1967. They were noted for being capable of over 90 mph (140 km/h) if worked well and did run at 100 mph (160 km/h) during their very early careers. D603 was damaged in an accident and was returned to NBL for repair in 1960: the cast light alloy cabs were replaced with sheet steel as the original NBL subcontractor for these items was not prepared to fabricate a small, one-off order.[citation needed] Swindon had a spare cab which wasn't used and survived long after the locos had been withdrawn before finally being sold for scrap.[citation needed]
    From new the D600s wore standard BR green with a 4-inch (102 mm) light grey horizontal band between the cabs a few inches above the solebar.[2] By the time of withdrawal D600 was in all-over rail blue with full yellow ends,[2] D602 was blue with small yellow warning panels on each nose[2] and D601/3/4 were still green, albeit with yellow warning panels
    All five locomotives were withdrawn on 30 December 1967. By this time they were non-standard, even for hydraulic designs, although according to Laira staff reliability was not a problem as many have thought. BR had been ordered to reduce the number of main line locomotive classes from 28 to 15 by 1974, primarily by eliminating types which were known to be unreliable, had high maintenance costs or were so few in number as to be non-standard. As the table below shows, there was a substantial gap between delivery of D601 and D602 because NBL had to equip itself to construct the engines and transmissions for these three locomotives. By this time the first Swindon-built D800s had entered service and these were the lightweight and more powerful diesel-hydraulic locomotives that the WR really wanted.
    D600 and D601 were sold to Woodham's Scrapyard in Barry. D600 was broken up within a couple of years but D601 remained intact until 1980. Preservation for D601 was denied on the ground that it was too far gone to be restored to operational condition and was not considered to be worth preserving for display only. The last survivor of what had been Class D600 was broken up without mourning in Woodhams Scrapyard, surrounded by locos which it had been intended to replace. D602-D604 were sold to Cashmore's of Newport who broke them up far more quickly than Woodhams (who concentrated on easily processible wagons before tackling locomotives). Somewhat ironically, as the fleet only lasted eight years in revenue-earning service, D601 actually spent more time in the scrapyard than it did hauling trains on the main line.





    D600 Active





    https://railway-photography.smugmug.com/1/Pre-TOPS-Locomotives/Type-4/Ype-4-North-British-Type-4-War/Type-4-North-British-Type-4-Wa/i-nRjXrxW



    [​IMG]
    Type 4 North British Warship class diesel-hydraulic D600-D604 (Class 41) - Railway-Photography

    railway-photography.smugmug.com
    railway photographs from the last 100 years


    https://railway-photography.smugmug.com/1/Pre-TOPS-Locomotives/Type-4/Ype-4-North-British-Type-4-War/Type-4-North-British-Type-4-Wa/i-b86MBR2



    [​IMG]
    Type 4 North British Warship class diesel-hydraulic D600-D604 (Class 41) - Railway-Photography

    railway-photography.smugmug.com
    railway photographs from the last 100 years


    D601 Ark Royal




    https://railway-photography.smugmug.com/1/Pre-TOPS-Locomotives/Type-4/Ype-4-North-British-Type-4-War/Type-4-North-British-Type-4-Wa/i-9PVsht7



    [​IMG]
    Type 4 North British Warship class diesel-hydraulic D600-D604 (Class 41) - Railway-Photography

    railway-photography.smugmug.com
    railway photographs from the last 100 years



    D603 Conquest



    https://railway-photography.smugmug.com/1/Pre-TOPS-Locomotives/Type-4/Ype-4-North-British-Type-4-War/Type-4-North-British-Type-4-Wa/i-Sx8ZG45

    [​IMG]
    Type 4 North British Warship class diesel-hydraulic D600-D604 (Class 41) - Railway-Photography

    railway-photography.smugmug.com
    railway photographs from the last 100 years
    D604 Cossack



    https://railway-photography.smugmug.com/1/Pre-TOPS-Locomotives/Type-4/Ype-4-North-British-Type-4-War/Type-4-North-British-Type-4-Wa/i-LnDSjRx

    [​IMG]
    Type 4 North British Warship class diesel-hydraulic D600-D604 (Class 41) - Railway-Photography

    railway-photography.smugmug.com
    railway photographs from the last 100 years




    https://railway-photography.smugmug.com/1/Pre-TOPS-Locomotives/Type-4/Ype-4-North-British-Type-4-War/Type-4-North-British-Type-4-Wa/i-3wsZT9N



    [​IMG]
    Type 4 North British Warship class diesel-hydraulic D600-D604 (Class 41) - Railway-Photography

    railway-photography.smugmug.com
    railway photographs from the last 100 years






    D600+D601 Barry Scrapyard


    https://railway-photography.smugmug.com/1/Pre-TOPS-Locomotives/Type-4/Ype-4-North-British-Type-4-War/Type-4-North-British-Type-4-Wa/i-GVk8vw6



    [​IMG]
    Type 4 North British Warship class diesel-hydraulic D600-D604 (Class 41) - Railway-Photography

    railway-photography.smugmug.com
    railway photographs from the last 100 years



    Neil
     
    Allegheny1600 and nick glanf like this.
  2. Victor

    Victor Nat Pres stalwart Friend

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    They weren't, with the best will in the world, be classed as a triumph for the styling department. Whoever styled those things was in the wrong job.
     

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