: Pip Dunn
: British Rail Class 20 Locomotives
: The Crowood Press
: 9781785000997
: 1
: CHF 30.20
:
: Schienenfahrzeuge
: English
: 208
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
The first of the English Electric Type 1 design, what we now know as the Class 20s, appeared in June 1957. With their distinctive 'chopper' engine sound, these single-cabbed locomotives soon gained a reputation for rugged reliability brought about by their simplicity and use of tried and tested components. British Rail Class 20 Locomotives looks back at the operations of these fine locomotives since 1957, covering their varied workings and duties, regional use and railtour operations. The book also covers the technical aspects and specifications of the locomotives, including liveries and detailing.

Pip Dunn was born in 1969 and became interested in railways in 1981. In 1984 he joined and started writing for the Class 20 Locomotive Society. Having graduated from the University of Huddersfield with a degree in Transport and Logistics in 1995, he became a writer for Rail magazine in 1996. In 2006 he became editor of Railways Illustrated, until May 2015. He took up the position of editor at Truck& Driver magazine in June 2015.

CHAPTER ONE


THE NEED FOR THE CLASS 20S


The English Electric Type A, later Type 1, Bo-Bo freight diesel – the ‘Class 20’ as we have known it since 1968 – has been a part of the UK’s rail system since June 1957, yet remarkably, in 2015, with the design fast approaching its sixtieth anniversary, some are still working on the main line and in industry today.

That is testament to the simplicity, robustness and dependability of a type of locomotive, which let’s face facts, certainly has the look of a steam age product.

And that is because, in the mid-1950s, a steam-driven British Railways was in desperate need of cutting costs, and the switch from steam to diesel and electric traction was seen as one solution. The railways were still suffering from the inevitable, and understandable, lack of investment caused by World War II. The nationalization of 1948 had brought together a motley selection of steam locos, some of which dated from pre-grouping, indeed some even from the nineteenth century!

Because of the war, the country’s railways lagged behind in the development and introduction of modern traction, but the late 1940s and early 1950s had seen some drives to embrace the new form of traction by the ‘Big Four’ – the Great Western, Southern, London Midland and Scottish and London North Eastern Railways – and later, from 1 January 1948, the fledgling nationalized British Railways. These companies had dabbled firstly with diesel shunters, and the LMS in particular was on the case for main line diesel traction.

Diesel locos offered major advantages over steam traction. They were cleaner, safer, more efficient and – especially – easier to operate. They offered huge operational savings over steam. In theory they could also be operated by one man – impossible on a steam loco, but in the unionheavy days of the 1950s, single manning was not really on the radar.

Nationalization didn’t stop the quest for diesel power, and if anything it finally accelerated it. In 1955, BR really took the bull by the horns and started its modernization programme, which led to small batches of prototype main line diesels – known as pilot scheme locos – being ordered from different manufacturers, in different power brackets and for different traffic types.

This process has been well documented, but fourteen different designs were ordered in small batches ranging from three to twenty locos, so that 174 new locos were ordered from 1955. The first were to be delivered in 1957, and the first Class 20, D8000, was the first of these locos to be handed over to British Railways. It is also well recorded that the pilo