Deltic retirement question

My guess is the early 1980s recession led to a drop in demand; the job only needed (and probably still only does) DMUs.

 

Believe the trans pennine workings were fill in turns, not planned for long term.

 

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned that the Deltics were only ever planned to be a stop-gap anyway. They were ordered to speed up services and cover what was regarded at the time as the gap between steam and electrification. That, in the event, electrification of the ECML didn't happen as soon as ER bosses of the early 1960s had anticipated, meant that an allocation of HSTs had to be ordered for the ECML. They themselves were a second stop-gap, if you like.

Their increased speed meant that ECML journey times could be reduced in comparison to Deltic timings, with the attendant positive publicity of BR being able to have more stretches of 125mph railway. As has previously been mentioned, the Deltics were a small, non-standard class and once HSTs came on stream in the late 70s their time was up. They were expensive to maintain and spares were already in short supply, hence the early withdrawal of 1 and 20.

As for how many engines they 'got through', they were intentionally designed for engines to be quickly swapped in and out, vastly reducing the amount of time any given loco was out of traffic - essential for a small, high status class. Whereas a Deltic could be back in service one shift later, other types could be kicking their heels for several days while problems were investigated, let alone repaired.

Deltic power units were known to 'put a leg out of bed' and throw oil but, given they were high revving, two-stroke MTB engines put in a railway locomotive, they coped remarkably well with what was asked of them. The locomotives spent most of their lives running at high speed and so, given the huge stresses on the components, proportionally I don't think they suffered any higher failure rates than other classes with slow revving, four stroke engines that were pottering along at 60 or 70mph.

 

The Westerns were replaced by the Class 50s whilst the reliability of the replacement fleet plus the reliability of the proposed Class 56s on Foster Yeoman services saw them continue for longer than planned.
But to the original question - the Deltics were expensive to operate with their "unit replacement" policy becoming increasingly so when the runs to Doncaster for unit exchanges to take place were added to the maintenance bill. Once the ER decided that they were surplus no other region would take them on for a variety of reasons hence the decision to finally withdraw them from service.

 

I am sure a development of the original Napier Power unit could have increased reliability and cut running costs.

The twin engine concept, gave it a great ability to get home, as a twin failure was almost unheard of.

From a purely engineering point of view, they were so much more advanced than the run of the mill stuff ordered.

Makes you wonder if a modern day equivalent was built, with twin engines, uprated to modern manufacturing designs, what could be possible.

The smokescreen would probably stop it, too many NIMBY's in this country now......

 

Do you mean development for railway use as their use in marine applications, the original use, does not seem to have been as problematic. The engines found favour in mine sweepers, the tupperware fleet, due to their low magnetic signature. One major difference between marine and railway use is that in marine use they virtually run at a constant speed, not suffering the frequent changes in load experienced with a railway loco

 

Just think if Gerry Fiennes had got his way and the 4000hp+ Super Deltics had been ordered. We can but dream.

 

Yes definitely, this was always seen as an Achilles heel, but with further development, I am sure reliability and performance could have been increased further.

With low weight, excellent route availability, better performance, you always wonder what could have been.

 

If one is in to such matters there is quite a bit about the Deltics on here....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06csy8c

 

I would not describe it as "quite a bit" though there are some interesting clips. It's not often that the origins of the Deltic engine gets a mention. As a whole what might have been a good programme was ruined for me by the poor commentary and irritating presenter.

 

We need a Deltic on the Surrey Hills route.

 

Or more likely a fleet of Kestrels.

 

My father was a 2nd man out of Kings Cross on Deltics. He said that they generally only ran the rear engine where possible to cut down the cab noise. 2 engine running was used when they needed to make time, or get back to the Cross for last orders.

 

"Sounds" very sensible.

 

Doesn't the Class 68 have similar performance or am I wrong there?

 

My Deltic driver mate says different. Sleepers and ecs, they'd run on one. Class 1 passenger, both engines. Tells me official instructions were to run both engines all the time to help with logging engine hours.

 

Originally the 'modernisation' era diesels were designed for a 20-25 year life - it was the starving of the railways of investment that resulted in 40-50 year lives for some classes.

 

Indeed you still have 37s running in passenger service.

 

They're called re-engineered Class 73s. (Some of them)