Deltic retirement question

Something I was wondering; why did BR retire the Deltics after only 20 years in traffic and keep other stuff of that vintage on? Like the 37s and 47s.

 

Good question but with BR moving away from loco hauled trains to fixed formations, the work for which they were built was disappearing. Also they were a small class so were prime candidates for early withdrawal as opposed to the hundreds of 47s that were knocking around. Quite high maintenance as well so to move them away from their dedicated support bases would no doubt have led to problems with reliability etc.

 

I agree with Spamcan81. The work for which they were designed dissapeared with the introduction of the HST sets on Kings Cross - Scotland services. In the old days main line engines would have been cascaded to secondary services but many of them had been closed. There was a general surplus of locos as the work for which many had been designed dried up. The situation with the Western Hydraulics was similar, again displaced by HST

 

the Deltic situation is different to the Westerns. They were dedicated passenger locos that lost their work when the next generation came along, The Westerns were mixed traffic locos that got bumped because they were non standard and there was a glut of 47s available (and the class 50s). HSTs didn't displace the Westerns.

 

Plus the fact it was impractical to fit ETH to the Westerns.

 

If the modernisation plan had been carried out in a more rational manner there would have been far fewer classes of locos and those classes that were built would have been built in larger numbers.

The deltics were a small non-standard class and were therefore always likely to have a shortened life.

 

Yes, several dozen more Deltics would have been very nice indeed.

 

The question of being a maintenance menace, with regard to cost is always mentioned.

Still think they could do a job on todays railway, light, very powerful, up to the ton quick enough, and all with 12 coaches hanging off the drawbar.

Progress eh.....

 

not to mention the exhaust silencer fires

 

Din? Go wash your mouth with soap. Was a wonderful, spine tingling howl.

 

They were generally a victim of being non standard - not just at the end but throughout their life. They ended up on the Eastern region when London Midland decided they didn't trust the engine technology - luckily at that point Eastern (under Gerry Fiennes) were looking for something of their horsepower to accellerate their services. That however wasn't enough to keep them once HST's came on stream for Eastern - and as already stated once their express passenger role had gone there wasn't really much else for them to do.

 

The prototype ended up on the ECML but IIRC the production ones were always an ECML project so I wouldn't say the "ended up" there.

 

I wonder how many engines those 22 locos got through in 20 years?

 

I make a similar comment about the noise from certain aircraft engines.

 

DIN ? DIN ? I damn near pressed the report button for that remark, it was mechanical music of the finest kind.
As to the original question, high maintenance and the HST sets were their undoing. One good thing for me though was they were cascaded on to the Liverpool -Newcastle services so we got them regularly stopping at Dewsbury. Gradually they were let deteriorate and most were running on just one engine.Even on one engine after the stop in Dewsbury, a "robust" start and up the hill to Morley Tunne.....................music.l

 

Not to be compared with 'Maybach music' of course....

Robin

 

Have a look through this highly impressive site.

All questions will be answered.

http://www.napier-chronicles.co.uk/major_component_menu.htm

 

Not so nice in the cabs though.

 

Pity they didn't decide to use them in Scotland, like the A4's previous.
How come they didn't work out on the Trans penine services, they seemed ok with it ?