The first time as tragedy, the second as farce

As part of the 1955 modernisation plan, British Railways ordered large numbers of diesel locomotives from just about every manufacturer that believed they were capable of building such things. Many companies with a good track record for building steam power took up the challenge. Many of those designs proved not to be up to the job, and many ended up on the scrapheap after ridiculously short lives, in some cases as little as six years in traffic. Such was the fate of classes like the Class 17 "Claytons", the class 23 "Baby Deltics", and everything produced by the Glasgow firm North British.

This posting by Hugh Dady to the South West Rail Gen mailing list suggests that history may be about to repeat itself.

Happy Anniversary 67014

Today 9th August 2002, General Motors ably assisted by Alstom can celebrate what is thought to be a 'first' in UK diesel traction for an almost brand new locomotive. One year ago today with the locomotive little over a year old, 67014 was declared a failure at Penzance on 9/08/01 before working 1C01 the 1930 TPO to Bristol and to this day has not worked a train again. Happy Anniversary for the first year out of service and good luck with the next!

This ultra reliable product (or so we were led to believe by Mr Fisk & Co) designed to replace the aging 47/7s has been off lease from EWS for some time dumped in the scrapline at Cardiff Canton - give, or take, 1.3 million pounds of scrap metal.

Even the worst examples of the pilot scheme diesels, Co-Bos, Baby Deltics, D8400s etc are hard put to beat this record - most of them were 5 years old before taking their rightful place decorating the depot yards of Britain.

The problems of the 67 design should have been no surprise to Ed Burkhart and his engineer Jim Fisk. They had only to look at the performance of the Alstom Mega class (Cl 67 clone) delivered to Israel Railways in June 98 to realise that they were buying a problem on wheels. Not only were Israel less than impressed with the Mega but they didn't seem to think much of its big brother curiously named Semi-Mega which is a Co-Co. Alstom had offered the basic body shell in a number of configurations with various traction packages available. The contract signed by EWS was with General Motors, the locomotives technically built under license by Alstom at Valencia in Spain.

Given the mechanical problems which have befallen the 67s, it might have been a safer option to plump for the Co-Co variant rather then hover on or over the axle load limit by trying to get the whole lot into a Bo-Bo locomotive that is actually longer than a 47!

Despite the many shortcomings of the mechanical design which manifest themselves in poor ride quality, excessive wheelset wear, short bogie spring life, buffing and drawgear problems etc it would appear that it is the GM supplied power plant which has been the downfall of the once SWRG 'pet skip' 67014. The locomotive had been in trouble long before August 9th last year with all sorts of heavy current electrical problems and a rather unhelpful fault diagnosis system which itself was giving misleading information from the on board engine management system.

On that fateful Thursday, the locomotive worked from St Blazey down to Penzance with 5C01, the TPO ecs, to form that evenings 1930 service to Bristol. It would seem that trouble was anticipated for an HQ riding inspector was already with the loco following previous repairs. Clearly both he and the driver were not happy for the locomotive was left on the country end at Penzance while alternative traction was found to work the service forward. 67014 was towed dit on the rear of the train before being cut at Par to make its way l/e to BZ. Two days later it ran under its own power first to Barton Hill and finally to Canton where GM and Alstom engineers were contacted.

By November both GM engineers and ones flown in from Alstom's Valencia plant had visited the loco but it appears they could not really agree what was wrong and perhaps more importantly who was responsible for putting it right! A vail of secrecy closed around the loco. The problems appeared to centre around the alternator which Alstom argued had been incorrectly manufactured by GM while GM declared that Alstom had fitted it incorrectly. Meanwhile with EWS struggling to keep the rest of the fleet operational it quickly became a Christmas tree for spare parts, first some wheel sets but later all manner of parts. The loco remains off lease with an unknown future while EWS finally announced three weeks ago that they were in effect back-peddling and would be embarking on a programme of light overhaul and what are politely referred to as 'reliability modifications' to selected examples of its elderly 47/7 fleet.

Plans to utilise 67s on charter work at the weekends have all but been thrown to the wind as those who watch the regular outings to Eden and elsewhere will realise. The higher Route Availability of 8 for a 67 as opposed to the 7 rating for a 47/7 is offered as the excuse, but that hardly adds up as the routes over which the Eden charters work are invariably cleared throughout for RA10!

Photograph them while you can - 67002 continues to languish at Crewe after its crash at Stapleton Road, and the class faces an uncertain future with EWS. On a positive note they have proved to be an excellent sales advert for the 57 conversion programme! Whether Britain's only 125 mph rated locomotive will ever be able to flex its muscles at this speed remains to be seen. The extensive on-going modification programme to the class is showing some signs of success with ride quality improved if still short of the norm expected on UK built products. Whether they ever deliver the promise remains to be seen, but for enthusiasts they have all the ingredients for a future cult class - small, idiosyncratic, named, difficult to get milage behind, potentially fast and just generally strange looking.
H.D.