What if Nationalisation didn't occur in 1948?

[Beechwood]

Perhaps the only certainty is that English Electric would have supplied diesels to both companies and quite possibly of the same 'off the peg' design.

If you look at Britain's export designs, then there were several contenders for supplying diesel locomotives in the early post-war era.

Metropolitan Vickers supplied Crossley-engined locos to Australia and Ireland (not very good ones)

BRCW supplied Sulzer-powered locos for Australia and Sierra Leone (though I think the touting for sales was actually done by the London sales office of Sulzer Bros)

EE were supplying locos to several markets

North British supplied a few locos with MAN engines to the Indian sub-continent and one to the LMS (again not very remarkable)

The most likely is probably EE, as the LNER had worked with Armstrong Whitworth between the wars and must have known the staff - most of whom went to EE after AW gave up building locos in the mid-1930s. Some of these staff had earlier worked for Beardmore.

I believe there was some anti-Swiss and anti-German sentiment in the immediate post-war period too, so NB and BRCW might have had problems.

US builders might be an outsider - Alco built locos for Portugal, Spain and Greece, for example, and Baldwin for France. Britain was being urged to export to survive though, so domestic products seem the only politically correct option.

If EE-powered locos were built they could have been designed by the LNER, just like the Bulleid locos on the Southern. My query is what justification there was for them though. The LNER built a lot of Pacifics in the post-war era and probably had a surplus of very new or newly-rebuilt locos. Once the coal crisis eased there was less and less incentive to use oil and more to use coal from the newly-nationalised pits.

[Multiprinter]

Yes, I agree there were other companies in the diesel building field, but EE had their foot in the door with the various 350hp shunters and the two Co-Cos for the LMS. I would think that (oil supplies permitting) the shunters would have multiplied rapidly, as they did under BR, and the Co-Co design in its LMS form would have gradually replaced the various class 4 and 5 steam locos with uprated versions(1750hp +) gradually replacing class 6 and 7 etc. In fact if EE had been closely involved then we may well have seen much the same diesels as we did under BR - Classes 20,37,40 and probably the Deltics.

[Bill Bedford]

If EE-powered locos were built they could have been designed by the LNER, just like the Bulleid locos on the Southern. My query is what justification there was for them though. The LNER built a lot of Pacifics in the post-war era and probably had a surplus of very new or newly-rebuilt locos. Once the coal crisis eased there was less and less incentive to use oil and more to use coal from the newly-nationalised pits.

If there had been a strong domestic market for diesel locos in the late forties, then the loco building companies, like NBL, might have been able to manage the transition from steam to diesel before their design staff drifted off to the motor and aircraft industries.

[Beechwood]

If there had been a strong domestic market for diesel locos in the late forties, then the loco building companies, like NBL, might have been able to manage the transition from steam to diesel before their design staff drifted off to the motor and aircraft industries.

Looking at the US as a precedent, then the old steam-building companies did not do well, despite a strong home demand. Alco just survived until the early 60s, but the rest went very quickly Baldwin, Lima etc. In truth, the 1930s had hit steam manufacturers very hard and most were in no financial state to manage the transition well. Baldwin had just hugely reinvested in equipment when the great crash came in 1929.

UK loco builders were also badly hit by the crash and its consequences. In contrast, EE had a very diverse range of interests and profited from them, so was very strong after the war. The shame is they didn't go on and prosper long-term with loco building like GE in the USA. I guess their obsession with the Deltic engine was a serious mistake.

[pete2hogs]

What evidence have you that EE were 'obsessed' with the deltic engine? DP2 , the class 40's and 37's would suggest otherwise?

The problem with all UK heavy manufacturing industry is that it had to face up with the loss of empire as an 'easy' export market, and then being disliked by the commonwealth after joining the EU. Very little of it has survived in any field, and the actual designs probably have very little to do with it.

The main difference I think is that more main lines would still be open, although no doubt many of the branches would still have closed. The LNER would never have closed the Woodhead line or Spalding-March! Probably we'd also still have a substantial 1500vdc mileage. And I suspect we'd have had more of those Deltics, cos Gerry Fiennes wouldn't have got sacked.

[Beechwood]

What evidence have you that EE were 'obsessed' with the deltic engine? DP2 , the class 40's and 37's would suggest otherwise?

There is quite a lot of evidence that the MD or someone high up in EE was impressed with the lightweight characteristics of EMD engines and saw the Deltic engine as a way of competing internationally without the penalty of extra weight - therefore avoiding extra weight, axles and cost when tendering for contracts.

From memory of books I have read, Deltic-powered locos were put forward in tenders for Australian orders and suggested to the Canadians, as well as the proposal for a Deltic-powered Type 3 on BR - maybe others too? The availability and maintenance figures for Deltics and Baby Deltics were well publicised in the press, so I guess the railway administrations drew their own conclusions about the reliability of Deltic-powered locos and (unfortunately) EE locos generally.

There is an old book on the Deltic family, covering the prototype, Baby Deltics, Deltics and DP2 which goes into this in some depth if I remember rightly - sorry, but I can't remember the title or the author.

[pete2hogs]

Believing you have a commercial advantage is not the same thing as being 'obsessed'. Despite all the naysaying there was no other product available at the time that could have done what the Deltics did. Similar arguments were made against the diesel hydraulics, and we now know that like was not compared with like when assessing maintenance costs.

I think it is very likely that had nationalisation not taken place there would have been more interest in unit swap type maintenance and lightweight locos for passenger service - after all, it's what we eventually got with the HST's which have been enormously successful.

[Beechwood]

I agree completely that the Deltic prototype was way ahead of its time in a number of ways and a true great of the railway era. It was way ahead of BR thinking and by the time it was introduced as a class (after a long delay), there were other locos coming along that could do a similar job. DP2 arrived in 1962, but only so late due to production delays? This was a very capable machine using far more conventional equipment and ran to Deltic diagrams. Falcon and eventually Kestrel were not far away either. We must also remember that the success of the dieselised East Coast services was just as much due to the Class 47s as the Deltics - though the Deltics got all the plaudits.

I was however referring to the Deltic engine as opposed to the Deltic locomotive - and the Baby Deltics were surely amongst the very biggest failures in the BR diesel fleet?

The book I mentioned in my last post was "Deltics - Super Profile" by R M Tufnell, published by Haynes, ISBN 0 85429 430 9. It is a fascinating read if you can get hold of a copy and covers the Deltic engine and locomotive story in great detail, including a very thorough description of the history and technical side of the engine.

The book does however show that there were some fundamental flaws that could not be eradicated at the time and made the Deltic engines (as opposed to locomotives) far more maintenance-heavy than they could have been. The pistons, cylinder liners and quill shafts for the water pump are specifically mentioned as serious problems that could not be resolved.

The book mentions several other proposals for BR, including a Super Deltic with 2 engines and a total of 4,400 hp in 1967.

EMD, by contrast, seem to have based their success on ultra-conservative designs. Their diesel engines were designed specifically for railway use and only very gradually enlarged and improved over many years. In the end, only the railroad companies themselves and new domestic competition from General Electric seem to have dragged them into high power, turbocharging etc. The Santa Fe had to buy brand new EMD locos and rebuild them with turbochargers to prove to EMD that not only was it feasible, but that it would not impact on the reliability of their products.

Incidentally, I see that secondhand EE locos from Portugal won a contest for suitable locos for Buenos Aires suburban services last year. They are being refurbished for the job. These beat all competition, including American designs. Interestingly, an Alco loco came second - and Alco folded in the 1960s.

[pete2hogs]

The Deltics, of course, were a 'first generation/pre modernisation plan' design. Anyone who has been in a Deltic cab will realise that. The protoypes Falcon, Lion, DP2 etc were very much a later generation. It's an enormous shame that BR didn't wait to properly evaluate _any_ of the prototypes, or for that matter the moderninastion plan pilot builds. As far as the later prototypes are concerned, they rushed into an order for 47's which simply did not achieve their design brief (however long lived they have turned out to be) and when they did belatedly decide to order some DP2's, they meddled with the design requirements so that they were both late and unreliable.

I agree that the Baby Deltics were a disaster, but was the engine entirely to blame? They were too heavy, which would seem to be a serious design and/or manufacturing error, given the engine itself was so light. They also seemed to work reasonably well after they were re-engineered.

It also very difficult to compare true maintenance costs when totally different processes are involved - The Deltics, the Hydraulics and Falcon were intended for a depot based component swap regime as opposed to main works focused maintenance - its not clear how far that was ever achieved in their lifetime, and in any case on the ECML it had to exist in parellel with entirely different regimes for the other locos in use.

Anyway, all I am saying is that to blame the manufacturers completely for our failure in the international diesel market when their biggest customer was behaving like a spoilt kid in a toyshop is not entirely fair.

If there had been no nationalisation and hence less political interference perhaps this would not have been as severe, since there wouild have been four customers instead of one.

[Multiprinter]

It is rather easy to criticise the 'Baby Deltics' but they were no worse that some other type 2 designs. Rightly no more were ordered which cannot be said of the NBL type 2 for example.

[Beechwood]

Anyway, all I am saying is that to blame the manufacturers completely for our failure in the international diesel market when their biggest customer was behaving like a spoilt kid in a toyshop is not entirely fair.

If there had been no nationalisation and hence less political interference perhaps this would not have been as severe, since there wouild have been four customers instead of one.

I don't disagree entirely, but the malaise really started in the 1930s, when the big four showed great antipathy to the progressive and pioneering outlook of domestic main line diesel manufacturers.

Beardmore (who went bust in 1930ish) and Armstrong Whitworth were genuine pioneers of main line diesel traction, but were more or less totally ignored by domestic railways.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

But in the 30's diesels cost a lot more than a couple of steam locos.

manna

[brsince78]

Believing you have a commercial advantage is not the same thing as being 'obsessed'. Despite all the naysaying there was no other product available at the time that could have done what the Deltics did. Similar arguments were made against the diesel hydraulics, and we now know that like was not compared with like when assessing maintenance costs.

I think it is very likely that had nationalisation not taken place there would have been more interest in unit swap type maintenance and lightweight locos for passenger service - after all, it's what we eventually got with the HST's which have been enormously successful.

We can thank Gerry Fiennes (General Manager of the Eastern and North Eastern regions of BR) for the Deltics. He is quoted as having declared that to compete with road over a distance of 250 miles an average speed of 75mph was required. For that it needed, in his view, something approaching 4000hp 'under the bonnet'. He spotted the potential of the prototype Deltic when it was on trial on the LMR and made a commercial case for the production Deltics to replace the steam fleet on the East Coast. Whilst the sentimentalists amongst us rued the day that the A4's and their sister classes were superceded, it was a harsh economic fact that fast, consistent, passenger services were required to meet the challenges of the advancement in road travel in the sixties and seventies.

Fiennes is also on record of having asked Freddie Harrison (the then BR CMEE) for a 4000hp locomotive in the late sixties, about the time that the Super-Deltic design was drawn-up by the former English Electric team at Stafford(?). Whilst this was not proceeded with, the 4000hp diesel train (albeit in two power cars) became a reality when the HST design was born in 1972/3.

[StevieG]

I rather liked the looks of the Brush "4000hp-rated" loco, "Kestrel", that was around for about four years from approx. 1967.
Particularly remember it coming slowly past the windows of "Wood Green Up Box No.4" on the Up Slow one night with a train of Carflats: we were turning it onto the Up Goods IIRC - probably because it was due for crew relief at Finsbury Park, who hadn't yet reported their arrival and being ready to relieve.

[Mickey]

Deleted