British Rail Class 41 (Warship Class)
Encyclopedia
The British Railways Class D600 diesel-hydraulic locomotives were built by the North British Locomotive Company
in Glasgow during 1957 and 1958. Although never assigned a TOPS class as they were withdrawn before TOPS was introduced British Loco enthusiasts coined the term "Class 41". All were named after Royal Navy
vessels, hence the nameplates each bore a subtitle "Warship Class".
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 ton
s compared to 80 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.
locomotives using the orange square coupling code.
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 tonne
s) 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 Later they were largely restricted to the line west of Plymouth, finally being withdrawn en bloc in December 1967.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 mi/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. Swindon had a spare cab which wasn't used and survived long after the locos had been withdrawn before finally been sold for scrap.
From new the D600s wore standard BR green with a 4 inches (101.6 mm) light grey horizontal band between the cabs a few inches above the solebar. By the time of withdrawal D600 was in all-over rail blue with full yellow ends, D602 was blue with small yellow warning panels on each nose and D601/3/4 were still green, albeit with yellow warning panels.
D600 and D601 were sold to Woodhams 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.
No Class D600 Warships survive in preservation, or indeed any main line North British diesel or electric products save for Class 84
25kV AC electric locomotive no. 84001.
released a song called 'Warship Class' on their debut album 'Thunderer & Excelsior' detailing a Summer trip to see the remaining Class D600 locomotives at Woodhams scrapyard on Barry Island.
Worsley Works produce a body kit in 'N', 2mm & 3mm scales. It's N Gauge produce the locomotives RTR in N scale.
North British Locomotive Company
The North British Locomotive Company was created in 1903 through the merger of three Glasgow locomotive manufacturing companies; Sharp Stewart and Company , Neilson, Reid and Company and Dübs and Company , creating the largest locomotive manufacturing company in Europe.Its main factories were...
in Glasgow during 1957 and 1958. Although never assigned a TOPS class as they were withdrawn before TOPS was introduced British Loco enthusiasts coined the term "Class 41". All were named after Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
vessels, hence the nameplates each bore a subtitle "Warship Class".
History
The fleet was ordered by the British Transport CommissionBritish Transport Commission
The British Transport Commission was created by Clement Attlee's post-war Labour government as a part of its nationalisation programme, to oversee railways, canals and road freight transport in Great Britain...
as direct comparison with British Rail Class 40
British Rail Class 40
The British Rail Class 40 is a type of British railway diesel locomotive. Built by English Electric between 1958 and 1962, and eventually numbering 200, they were for a time the pride of the British Rail early diesel fleet...
, 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 ton
Ton
The ton is a unit of measure. It has a long history and has acquired a number of meanings and uses over the years. It is used principally as a unit of weight, and as a unit of volume. It can also be used as a measure of energy, for truck classification, or as a colloquial term.It is derived from...
s compared to 80 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.
Mechanical details
Each locomotive was equipped with two MAN L12V18/21A diesel engines, each set to produce 1000 hp (750 kW) at 1445 rpm. This conservative rating was partly because NBL was very inexperienced at constructing diesel locomotives and partly because the Voith L306r three speed transmissions available at the time were not able to accept more. MAN had refined the engine design to produce 1100 hp at around the time the D600 order was placed with NBL. The A1A-A1A wheel arrangement likewise came about because the BTC-mandated heavyweight construction required 6 axles to keep to a 20 ton axle loading, but NBL could not work out how to create a pivotless bogie and driving arrangement for C-C wheel arrangement. There were no C-C diesel-hydraulic locomotives to use as a template in mid-1955. The arrangement produced a continuous tractive effort of 39,600 lbf (176 kN) at 12.6 mph (20.3 km/h). Unusually for a British diesel locomotive, the D600s had spoked wheels. They could work in multiple with each other or up to two D6300British Rail Class 22
The British Rail Class 22 or "Baby Warship" was a class of diesel-hydraulic locomotives designed for the Western Region of British Railways and built by the North British Locomotive Company. They were very similar in appearance to the Class 21 diesel-electrics...
locomotives using the orange square coupling code.
Service and liveries
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 (160.9 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
Laira TMD
Laira TMD is a railway Traction Maintenance Depot situated in Plymouth, Devon, England. The depot is operated by First Great Western and is mainly concerned with the overhaul and daily servicing of their fleet of High Speed Trains and also the DMUs used on local services...
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 tonne
Tonne
The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...
s) 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
British Rail Class 42
British Railways' Type 4 Warship class diesel-hydraulic locomotives were introduced in 1958. It was apparent at that time that the largest centre of expertise on diesel-hydraulic locomotives was in Germany...
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 mi/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. Swindon had a spare cab which wasn't used and survived long after the locos had been withdrawn before finally been sold for scrap.
From new the D600s wore standard BR green with a 4 inches (101.6 mm) light grey horizontal band between the cabs a few inches above the solebar. By the time of withdrawal D600 was in all-over rail blue with full yellow ends, D602 was blue with small yellow warning panels on each nose and D601/3/4 were still green, albeit with yellow warning panels.
Withdrawal and scrapping
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 Woodhams 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
John Cashmore Ltd
John Cashmore Ltd was a company based at Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales...
'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.
No Class D600 Warships survive in preservation, or indeed any main line North British diesel or electric products save for Class 84
British Rail Class 84
The British Rail Class 84 was a 25 kV AC electric locomotive that operated on the West Coast Main Line of the London Midland Region.- History :...
25kV AC electric locomotive no. 84001.
Cultural references
In 2008, London Band SilverySilvery
Silvery are a London-based 4-piece indie rock band, signed to Blow Up Records . Their sound was best described by Journalist David Quantick in The Word as “Splenetic, frenetic, kinetic” and in NME as “Girlie harmonies, sniggering, fairground piano.....
released a song called 'Warship Class' on their debut album 'Thunderer & Excelsior' detailing a Summer trip to see the remaining Class D600 locomotives at Woodhams scrapyard on Barry Island.
Class details
| Number | Name | Date to traffic | Date withdrawn | Cut up | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D600 | Active HMS Active (H14) HMS Active, the tenth Active , launched in 1929, was an A class destroyer. She served in World War II, taking part in the sinking of four submarines. She was broken up in 1947.... |
March 1970 at Woodhams, Barry | Date of order 16 November 1955 Maker's order no. L76. |
||
| D601 | Ark Royal HMS Ark Royal (91) HMS Ark Royal was an aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy that served during the Second World War.Designed in 1934 to fit the restrictions of the Washington Naval Treaty, Ark Royal was built by Cammell Laird and Company, Ltd. at Birkenhead, England, and completed in November 1938. Her design... |
July 1980 at Woodhams, Barry | |||
| D602 | Bulldog | November 1968 at Cashmore John Cashmore Ltd John Cashmore Ltd was a company based at Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales... 's, Newport |
|||
| D603 | Conquest HMS Conquest (1915) HMS Conquest was a C-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was part of the Caroline group of the C-class of cruisers.She was laid down in March 1914, launched 20 January 1915 and commissioned into the navy in June 1915. She was assigned to the 5th Light Cruiser Squadron, Harwich Force,... |
November 1968 at Cashmore John Cashmore Ltd John Cashmore Ltd was a company based at Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales... 's, Newport |
|||
| D604 | Cossack HMS Cossack (F03) HMS Cossack was a Tribal-class destroyer which became famous for the boarding of the German supply ship Altmark in Norwegian waters, and the associated rescue of sailors originally captured by the Admiral Graf Spee.... |
September 1968 at Cashmore John Cashmore Ltd John Cashmore Ltd was a company based at Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales... 's, Newport |
|||
Modelling
A 00 gauge kit has been available from Silver Fox models and this was also available as a ready to run model, made to order. Since Dapol have announced that a limited edition OO RTR model of the Class D600 will be produced in collaboration with Kernow Model Rail Centre, the Silver Fox model has been withdrawn. This is expected to be available in 2012.Worsley Works produce a body kit in 'N', 2mm & 3mm scales. It's N Gauge produce the locomotives RTR in N scale.