HS4000 Kestrel

wouldnt it be nice if...

is there an official record of it's scrapping, beyond the rumour of it..

 

My wife just did a quick translation of some of the comments on the page.

It was bought for 127k in 1971 and displayed at an exhibition for the Shcherbinka Railway (test track) in 1971. In 1972 it was used for trial operations at DWS, and then was returned to OK VNIIZhT and finally was later transferred to VNIKTI (where this picture was taken). The engine was used on some trains between St Petersburg/Leningrad and Tallin, before a failure due to Oil Pressure problems and the Crank Case sidelined it. Parts were removed for repair, but never reinstalled. Later it was used as a ballast weight being hauled by other locomotives on test trains.
The locomotive was treated with both suspicion and admired by the crews, for being foreign but it was believed it was not to the quality as actually expected.

Two reports suggest it was cut up in 1993, another says it was sidelined for musuem status and seen in 1994... most posts cannot agree with it being cut up or if it is still existing.

There are 2 other links, will have a look when we get time.

 

''In June 1971 the locomotive visited the Vickers Armstrong works at Barrow for engine removal and overhaul. Upon release from Vickers it returned to Shirebrook for more Mansfield - Whitemoor freight workings. It's continued stay on BR was brief for the locomotive was sold to the USSR railways. After attention at Crewe Works, it was removed to Cardiff Docks and shipped to Leningrad on July 8th 1971. The locomotive was purchased for �127,000. The original asking price was �205,820.00 but presumably since no one else was interested in the locomotive the Russians were able to bargain the price downwards.

During 1971 an international exhibition 'Railroad Rolling Stock-71' was held in Scherbinka, presumably HS4000 was present for this. It would be tested at Scherbinka and no doubt some of the results filtered into Soviet locomotive designs. Kestrel was tested against the latest Soviet passenger diesel of the time, the TEP60. From this testing the TEP70 was developed, as of 2007 the TEP70 still remains in production.

At some point the power unit was removed from the locomotive and set up in a workshop to allow further tests, of a static nature, to be carried out. The locomotive shell remained intact and was ballasted with concrete, presumably for use as a dead-load vehicle. By the early 1980's it is reported that the locomotive body was suffering severely from corrosion, though it is reported as remaining in service at least until 1986. The remains of Kestrel were scrapped at the Kolomna locomotive workshops during 1993.





Above photographs courtesy Oleg Izmerov.
Three views of the gutted locomotive, the first view shows a little of the concrete ballast added to the engine room, the other two show one of the stripped cabs, the instrumentation no doubt transferred to the static test laboratory.
''

Quote taken of a site, some sort of dedicated Kestrel site via yahoo images

 

It is good dear... but can you upload some more pictures of it in Russia...?