Just a short bit of history on the above Loco.

 

 

 

Class 20 English Electric/BR

 

A little history on the above, which Kernow Models have in stock.

 

British Rail back in 1957 put a order for 20 of these trains,  they had a top speed of 60mph. BR later on went on to re-order bringing the total to 228. They where built at the Vulcan Foundry in Newton-le Willows and Robert Stephenson in Darlington.

When the full order was met they then sent them all over, Scotland, Midlands and the Eastern area.

 They where very successful  and said to be the most successful diesel design. This was despite a poor cab design;  The bonnet was huge and caused sight restrictions, when they where driven forwards. Some refits where carried out, redesign in appearance and  internal reliability modifications, what this was i have no idea.

This then saw them carry on working until the early 1990’s. Sadly they where taken off line so to speak, but one operator decided to take them on and was used for cable laying around the country. Think they took on about 30 or 40 of them? These where based at Bescot.

Sadly after a while they began to fall into disrepair and sold to Direct Rail Services, which then converted them into Class 20/3 subclass.

 

Many where sold by BR to place’s who restored them and put them on display etc but they are now coming back online for hire and contract work. A company set up bought various redundant Loco’s and hire them out, such as this one. Be interesting to see what sort of work they are doing now, just to see if it’s any different to what they where built for.
If you click on this link then you find a pic,s of them there, http://merlinsgallery.fotopic.net/c1242605.html

 Phill

Thanks Phill, a good short summary of the class.

Why were they nearly always in pairs?

Adding to Phill's info, they had English Electric diesel engines of 1000 hp and were primarily used for freight, often in pairs coupled nose to nose in later life.

They were sometimes used for Summer passenger trains and excursions but not in Winter as they had no steam heating (or electric train supply for later times when coaches had electric heating).

You may have seen the Heljan "Clayton" class 17 advertised around the place. These were supposed to replace the class 20s as the new standard type, as they had much better visibility in both directions over the low bonnets. They were so unsuccessful that further orders for the EE type 1 (class 20) followed; this batch of around 100 locomotives had the four-character headcode indicators instead of the four folding white discs at each end.

[user=162]martin[/user] wrote:

Why were they nearly always in pairs?

As Phill mentioned the design is similar to the typical steam locomotive with a long engine compartment and the cab at one end.  This gave very restricted visibilty for the driver when running nose-first (i.e. forwards as far as the design is concerned), worse apparently than from steam locos where there was at least a little more of the way ahead visible alongside a rounded boiler than beside a solid rectangle of engine compartment.

They were also rather low in power and braking capacity which while being acceptable for short trains on most lines was not suitable for heavier trains or working on steeply-graded lines.  At the time they were introduced most freights were only partially-fitted with continuous brakes and some not braked at all other than the loco and brake van.  

Taken together these two situations made it desireable to improve visibility and widen their scope of operations.  Thus it was that they were often coupled nose to nose in pairs and some of those pairings became long-lasting.  In effect the locos were then being driven backwards but this had the advantage of the driver having no part of the loco or train obstructing his forward view.

As they were increasingly used on coal trains in the Midlands and Scotland their coupling in pairs made it easier to employ them on longer and heavier trains including over some steep routes such as those through the South
Yorkshire coalfields and the Ayr - Dalmellington route.

The first ones were delivered to Devon's Road (Bow) depot in East London and from there they spread around the Eastern, North Eastern and Scottish Regions quite rapidly, eventually congregating on the LMR in the Notts and Derby coalfield based at Toton and small depots in that region.  

A few are still in use today by specialist rail operators and those which have entered the realm of preservation typically have large followings where ever they go.

From Wikipedia & has been confimed to me by a Signalman who lived in Denton & worked at Edgley Junction.

Unusually for British designs, the locomotive had a single cab. This caused serious problems with visibility when traveling nose first, though in these circumstances the driver's view is comparable to that on the steam locomotives that the Class 20s replaced.

So they ran them in pairs with the cab at the extreme ends.

We must have been typing those replies at the same time!

Unlike the extremely numerous shunter classes which all had the cab at one end the class 20 was a full-length loco.  The class 08 - 12 series shunters are short-framed and while still having visibility restrictions these are not as severe as on the "Choppers".  

A shunting loco working in a yard would also typically have a (human) shunter riding "shotgun" on the buffer beam or working alongside it who could act as a guide to the driver when necessary.

Those of us familiar with US and Australian operations will be aware of many diesel classes with a single cab at one end of a long "bonnet".  Some of these operate in pairs or lash-ups of several locos (the Australian NR class comes to mind here) and are seldom seen in traffic with the nose leading.   Those railways also still retain turntables in key locations where these diesels are turned as necessary.   "Forward" is regarded as cab-first running where on the Class 20 that is "Reverse".

To add to the above, it became general practice to run in pairs but there was no requirement to do so or restrictions imposed if they were run singly.

They were frequently used singly in Scotland to the very end!

Agreed Chris but can you imagine the reaction of your average Toton / Westhouses / Barrow Hill driver if rostered a single "20"?  'e'd be up   t'shedmaster's office soon as look at 'ee w'i 'is opeeneon!

Certainly would!  I remember one legendary "negotiation" between a driver and supervisor that ended up with the driver suggesting the supervisor should "shove it up his donga"

Nobody was brave enough to enquire exactly where a donga was and how you would go about shoving a loco up it :roll:

Ouch!   

 

There were some other, less successful classes that also had the "hood" design; the BTH class 15 (soon to come from Heljan as RTR in OO), and the very similar NBL class 16, plus the prototype 10800. All were lower powered than the 20s at 800 hp, and had the further disadvantage of having a short hood behind the cab so restricting visibility in both directions of travel.

Some US railroads prefered their roadswitcher to run with long hood forward. While visibilty was not improved it was felt safer for the crew as most railroad crossing were not protected by gates.

 

Thomas

That's correct, Thomas.  The Nickel Plate Road ran their RS series long hood forward and it wasn't until about when the GP's came along, that they changed.  It is said that some steam crews who transferred to diesel were more comfortable as it "felt" more like the old steamers, with all the hardware up front.  Personally, I think if you were in a crash of any substance, you were probably doomed anyway.

Nice one Phill. How about a blue one then…..

I was brought up on a diet of Toton class 20's in my train spotting days in Nottinghamshire and they became my favourite loco!

On odd occasions I have seen them running cab to nose and on one particular occasion cab to cab (this I was told was probably due to engine failure and a recovery operation taking place).

And talking of  class 20's nearly always working in pairs when is a manufacturer going to produce a dummy version!:hmm

[user=2]Robert[/user] wrote:

Nice one Phill. How about a blue one then…..

You certainly know what to say Bob hey :thumbs but as your the Lord of this Forum i am unable to make a remark to you, :thud.

Phill