British Rail Class 40
The British Rail Class 40 is a type of British railway diesel electric locomotive. A total of 200 were built by English Electric between 1958 and 1962. They were numbered D200-D399. Despite their initial success, by the time the last examples were entering service they were already being replaced on some top-level duties by more powerful locomotives. As they were slowly relegated from express passenger uses, the type found work on secondary passenger and freight services where they worked for many years. The final locomotives ended regular service in 1985. The locomotives were commonly known as "Whistlers" because of the distinctive noise made by their turbochargers.
Origins
The origins of the Class 40 fleet lay in the prototype diesel locomotives and most notably with the Southern Region locomotive No. 10203, which was powered by English Electric's 16SVT MkII engine developing 2,000 bhp. The bogie design and power train of 10203 was used almost unchanged on the first ten production Class 40s.Prototypes
British Railways originally ordered ten Class 40s, then known as "English Electric Type 4s", as evaluation prototypes. They were built at the Vulcan Foundry in Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire. The first locomotive, D200, was delivered to Stratford on 14 March 1958. Following fitter and crew training, D200 made its passenger début on an express train from London Liverpool Street to on 18 April 1958. Five of the prototypes, Nos. D200, D202-D205, were trialled on similar services on the former Great Eastern routes, whilst the remaining five, Nos. D201, D206-D209, worked on Great Northern services on the East Coast Main Line.Sir Brian Robertson, then chairman of the British Transport Commission, was less than impressed, believing that the locomotives lacked the power to maintain heavy trains at high speed and were too expensive to run in multiple – opinions that were later proved to be correct. Airing his views at the regional boards prompted others to break cover and it was agreed that later orders would be uprated to 2,500 hp. Direct comparisons on the Great Eastern Main Line showed they offered little advantage over the "Britannia" class steam locomotives when driven well, and the Eastern Region declined to accept further machines as they deemed them unsuitable to replace the Pacific steam locomotives on the East Coast Main Line, preferring to hold on until the "Deltic" Class 55 diesels were delivered.
The London Midland Region was only too pleased, as the Eastern Region's decision released additional locomotives to replace their ageing steam fleet. The West Coast Main Line had been starved of investment for many years and the poor track and generally lower speeds suited Class 40s, as the need to hold trains at speed for long periods simply did not exist and it better took advantage of their fairly rapid acceleration.
Production
Following the mixed success of the prototypes, another 190 locomotives were ordered by British Railways, and were numbered from D210 to D399. All were built at Vulcan Foundry, except one batch of twenty which were built at Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns factory in Darlington. All the locomotives were painted in the British Railways diesel green livery, and the final locomotive, D399, was delivered in September 1962.Batches of the class were built with significant design differences, due to changes in railway working practices. The first 125 locomotives, Nos. D200–D324, were built with steam-age 'disc' headcode markers, which were used to identify services. Later, it was decided that locomotives should display the four character train reporting number of the service they were hauling, and Nos. D325–D344 were built with 'split' headcode boxes, which displayed two characters either side of the locomotive's central gangway doors. Another policy decision led to the discontinuing of the gangway doors. The remaining locomotives, Nos. D345–D399, carried a central four-character headcode box. In 1965, seven of the first batch of locomotives, Nos. D260–D266, which were based in Scotland, were converted to the central headcode design.
From 1973, locomotives were renumbered to suit the TOPS computer operating system, and became known as 'Class 40'. Locomotives D201 to D399 were renumbered in sequence into the range 40 001 to 40 199. The first built locomotive, D200, was renumbered 40 122, which was vacant due to the scrapping of D322 as the result of accident damage.
The named 40s
Locomotives in the range D210–D235 were to be named after ships operated by the companies Cunard Line, Elder Dempster Lines, and Canadian Pacific Steamships, as they hauled express trains to Liverpool, the home port of these companies. The only locomotive not to carry a name was D226 which was to carry the name Media but never did so. From approximately 1970, with Class 40s no longer working these trains, the nameplates were gradually removed, so that by 1973 contributors to Railway World were reporting 7 different locomotives running without nameplates, all observed in North Wales. However the Ian Allan Motive Power Combined Volume was still listing the names of all officially named Class 40 locomotives in 1980 despite none having carried their nameplates for many years.| Loco | Name | Shipping line | Date named |
| D210 | Empress of Britain | Canadian Pacific Steamships | |
| D211 | Mauretania | Cunard Line | |
| D212 | Aureol | Elder Dempster Lines | |
| D213 | Andania | Cunard Line | |
| D214 | Antonia | Cunard Line | |
| D215 | Aquitania | Cunard Line | |
| D216 | Campania | Cunard Line | |
| D217 | Carinthia | Cunard Line | |
| D218 | Carmania | Cunard Line | |
| D219 | Caronia | Cunard Line | |
| D220 | Franconia | Cunard Line | |
| D221 | Ivernia | Cunard Line | |
| D222 | Laconia | Cunard Line | |
| D223 | Lancastria | Cunard Line | |
| D224 | Lucania | Cunard Line | |
| D225 | Lusitania | Cunard Line | |
| D226 | Cunard Line | Never | |
| D227 | Cunard Line | ||
| D228 | Cunard Line | ||
| D229 | Saxonia | Cunard Line | |
| D230 | Scythia | Cunard Line | |
| D231 | Sylvania | Cunard Line | |
| D232 | Empress of Canada | Canadian Pacific Steamships | |
| D233 | Empress of England | Canadian Pacific Steamships | |
| D234 | Elder Dempster Lines | ||
| D235 | Elder Dempster Lines |
A series of unofficial names were applied to the Class 40s by enthusiasts and enthusiastic depot staff. Some locos ran in service with these names applied for many months, others were painted out within days.
The locos to carry these unofficial names were:
- 40 060 'Ancient Mariner'
- 40 104 'Warrior'
- 40 129 'Dracula'
- 40 131 'Spartan'
- 40 132 'Hurricane'
- 40 134 'Andromeda'
- 40 137 'Trojan'
- 40 145 'Panther'
- 40 150 'Crewe'
- 40 155 'Vulcan Empress'
- 40 164 'Lismore'
BR service
After the early trials the majority of Class 40s were based at depots in northern England, notably Longsight, Carlisle Kingmoor, and Wigan Springs Branch on the Midland Region, and Thornaby and Gateshead on the Eastern Region.
The heyday of the class was in the early 1960s, when they hauled top-link expresses on the West Coast Main Line and in East Anglia.
Like many diesel locomotive types of the time, they suffered criticism for reliability. The train heating boilers were a particular early problem on the Class 40s, requiring strict maintenance and were fairly complicated to operate. Late Autumn 1958 on the Great Northern line saw that, on six out of ten days, the Flying Scotsman service failed to produce a diesel, and ran late with a steam loco deputising. Breakdowns were common. The biggest problem the class encountered was their poor power-to-weight ratio. They lacked the versatility of the Class 37s, being either too heavy or too underpowered, for the work allocated.
However, the arrival of more powerful diesels such as the Class 47, Class 50, Class 55, and the later InterCity 125, together with the electrification of the West Coast Main Line, meant that the fleet was gradually relegated to more mundane duties.
In later life the locomotives were mainly to be found hauling heavy freight and passenger trains in the north of England and Scotland. As more new rolling stock was introduced, their passenger work decreased, partly due to their lack of electric train heating for newer passenger coaches. They lost their last front-line passenger duties – in Scotland – in 1980, and the last regular use on passenger trains was on the North Wales Coast Line between Holyhead, Crewe and Manchester, along with regular forays across the Pennines on Liverpool to York and Newcastle services.
Throughout the early 1980s Class 40s were common performers on relief, day excursion and holidaymaker services along with deputisation duties for electric traction, especially on Sundays between Manchester and Birmingham. This resulted in visits to many distant parts of the network. It would be fair to say that few routes in the London Midland and Eastern regions did not see a Class 40 worked passenger service from time to time. Regular destinations included the seaside resorts of Scarborough, Skegness and Cleethorpes on the Eastern region, with Blackpool and Stranraer being regularly visited on the West Coast.
Much rarer workings include visits to London's Paddington and Euston stations, Norwich, Cardiff and even Kyle of Lochalsh. The fact that 40s could turn up almost anywhere resulted in them being followed by a hard core of bashers, enthusiasts dedicated to journeying over lines with rare traction for the route.