The Tale of the Diesel Hydraulics

It still both amazes and annoys me that our Politicians fell over themselves to fund German Engineers, and their Factories and Heavy Industry, to the total detriment of British Companies immediately after WW2. From Volkswagen, through Krups, Bosch, and Daimler etc, we gave billions to rebuild them, thus putting a dagger through the heart of UK Competitors, just at the point we should have taken our ownership of them and the technology as reparations for WW2. I just cannot understand the thinking and also the sheer lack of business acumen of our post WW2 Labour Government in doing this?

BR Class 42 and 43 Warships replaced the GWR King and Castle Classes and the SR Bulleid Pacifics

Unreal how many different problems were encountered.

Thanks for a much-needed expos'e of the BR Modernisation Scheme with disaster following disaster, culminating in the dreaded Clayton Class 17s. How that disaster was allowed to happen - an untested locomotive from an inexperienced builder designed for a traffic that was already rapidly disappearing - without anybody going to jail is beyond me.

There was also a BR Class Lion, a diesel engine. I knew that it was supposed to be preserved but it was subsequently scrapped.

What happened to the BR Class Falcon? I knew that they would have to preserve it but it had engine problems so it was scrapped at Cashmere Works.

Is it only me thinking this I wonder but I can't help but think just how grimy and dirty Britain looked then..... but when hear that bad railway servicing policies meant that excess diesel and oil was being expelled from essentially broken down locomotives, should we be surprised?

As a fireman at old oak common at the time of the change over at the time I personally felt that they were introduced without any proper and although nobody ever seems to mention it there were a high number of failures in the warship and western class where a steam loco was required to be called upon as a tow truck . I appreciate that there are a lot of enthusiastic people that admire this type of loco but in the cab doing 90 mph they were not a good ride

Very informative to somebody like me with only a very sketchy knowledge of these classes - thanks!

Another great video, i love the effort and attention to detail you put into these documentaries. i did have a little pointer for you though, at the start you credit the film as your own work, but i would advise putting the credit to Ruairidh MacVeigh specifically, in that case anybody could use the footage and you would still get full credit within the film itself. something to consider. thanks as always!

I painted western ranger in Kidderminster paint shop with my mate, in BR blue, it's a huge job with a 4 inch brush, 15ft from the top centre to the tumble home, one starts from the bottom working as far as you can reach, the top man works down laying off into the lower level, fine enough, but it is 60 ft long! So, go for a wee, turn off the phone, and go for it.

Great video!

Loved the hymeks and westerns. Rode westerns up and down every Saturday in my teens in Devon. Thought they sounded best... till I Heard a deltic.

Love listening to these periods of history

Are DMUs not diesel hydraulics?

Narration is on point!

What about the class 180?

As always, a brilliant and well researched video. I much enjoy your style of commentary. One point which you did not mention is that in later years, some class 42s or 43s were transferred to the southern region working out of Waterloo. I’m not sure how successful they were for how long they lasted, but I do remember seeing them. Thanks for great presentations

Fabulous documentary

Did you leave out the Class 180?

I’ve spent the last month or so watching train videos on loop and how much I’ve learned is amazing so thank you very much

The Hymeks were certainly the best performers, despite being of a lower power output. To put it bluntly, they were put on workings that required a more powerful unit and thrashed.
However, they took the thrashings and delivered a performance that could only be expected of a Western class.

Lord above! If the BR standards were an unnecessary stop gap most of these were a plain waste of money...tax payers money at that. BR really was a true labour institution. Despite being 'for the working person' they loved blowing said working persons money on ventures that never worked

Brilliant presentation, Ruairidh, thank you.

Really interesting video - I've never seen these machines in the flesh but heard much about them. This put it all into context. thank you.

Another enjoyable video, but I am slightly disappointed that the Class 14s didn't at least get a mention.

Really wanted to like this video but there's zero technical detail on what made them different? What are the Voith transmissions? How do they work that's different? Shame there's lots of numbers but no tech detail.

I noted that in Victoria, Australia, diesel hydraulics were mainly used in smaller units such as shunting or rail cars. I have never heard of a say 2400HP DH. Presumably they would need a huge transmission with all the complications.

Brilliant

Another great documentary 👍👍👍

Great video and fun fact the baby Warship at 1000hp is equivalent in power to a modern era F1 car. One might be significantly faster but only one will survive a head on crash with the other 😊😊

Its not Brunswick Green, Its BR locomotive Dark Green.

Hydraulic transmission in lightweight bodies and under-frames made sense to wr operators faced with the lumbering A1A prototypes. Just a shame that we didn't have the engine experience needed to build our own suitable power plants and had to import German engines that were developments of Zeppelin engines! They were built under licence by Armstrong Siddely in Coventry (very badly bombed ten years or so earlier)! I worked at the factory that made them and lightweight high speed diesels were uncommon at the time. Think if the public knew of the money spent on licencing a German product there would have been an outcry. On a still and clear night you could hear a Western spooling up its turbos from miles away as it thrashed up to Paddington making up time. As an engineer you guessed at the temperatures and feared for piston rings and valves.

I think you have to blame Wilson and Labour for those dodgy diesel hydraulics and also for swinging Beeching's axe.

I loved the diesel Warships.

Thanks :)

Love warships class 42

I wonder if anyone on the Modernisation Plan committee thought that wiring up the entire network was the best way to go, not running portable power stations.

The narration doesn't do this video justice, clearly the person is reading from a script with little emotion. I'd rather just watch without

Ironic... a reliable MAN submarine diesel plonked onto an unworkable British loco and given a Royal Navy name

Yet another dead end in English Railway history. A bankrupt Britain did not need any dumb projects and should have kept building steam engines and running them. It would have save them money after the 1973 Oil Crises.

Great channel. Keep up the good work😀

Another excellent presentation.

I would have loved if the British loading gauge was big enough to take the Alco DL-500 while not as spectacular they were brutally reliable and could turn good turns of speed when needed and handle long grades with ease.

It would be great if you could do a doco on the ALCO DL-500 As a class they were probably probably the largest single class of imported diesel locomotives in Europe before the coming of the EMD JT42-SS in the 90's.

Who designed them? They have powerful lines.

Thanks for a brilliant video, I love the Westerns

Its a very sad end to the westerns. In my book, if a locomotive is on active duty on the mainline it should be maintained to the best of the maintenance crews ability rather than left to gradually degrade until they fail. Just seems wrong in my opinion. But if the top brasses motives were to get rid of them but suck every ounce of usability out of them, i can kinda see where they were coming from. But it doesnt bode well for running a reliable service.