Fearless
BR class 50 "Hoover" 50050 "Fearless" under restoration at Yeovil Railway Centre during the Yeovil 150 event on 21st July 2010. Despite appearances, the engine had been started earlier in the day.
50050 was built at Vulcan Foundry and delivered in BR Blue livery as D400 (the first of the class) in October 1967. In its early years it and the other 49 locomotives of its type were used on high speed passenger duties on the (then not electrified) northern half of the West Coast Main Line.
Following electrification of the northern half of the WCML the entire class was reallocated to the Western Region, where they displaced the popular class 52 "Western" diesel-hydraulic locomotives. Unreliability led to a major refurbishment of the entire class at Doncaster Works from 1977 to 1983, following which all but the first six were outshopped in the then new "large logo" livery which "Fearless" still carries the remains of. 50050 was one of the last two of the class (with 50007 "Sir Edward Elgar") to be withdrawn from mainline service in March 1994.
With hindsight the "Hoovers" (as they became known) were a classic case in how not to do procurement. Whilst the DP2 prototype upon which they were based was by all accounts a conventional and reliable machine, the specification for the production locomotives included unproven (to the UK at the time) new technologies such as a complex electronic control system, rheostatic braking, inertial air filtering and slow speed control (the latter never needed in service!). These contributed to poor reliability, and as a result the refurbishment programme they underwent was earlier and far more major than it might otherwise have needed to be.
For more information on the class 50 locomotives, please see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_50.
Fearless
BR class 50 "Hoover" 50050 "Fearless" under restoration at Yeovil Railway Centre during the Yeovil 150 event on 21st July 2010. Despite appearances, the engine had been started earlier in the day.
50050 was built at Vulcan Foundry and delivered in BR Blue livery as D400 (the first of the class) in October 1967. In its early years it and the other 49 locomotives of its type were used on high speed passenger duties on the (then not electrified) northern half of the West Coast Main Line.
Following electrification of the northern half of the WCML the entire class was reallocated to the Western Region, where they displaced the popular class 52 "Western" diesel-hydraulic locomotives. Unreliability led to a major refurbishment of the entire class at Doncaster Works from 1977 to 1983, following which all but the first six were outshopped in the then new "large logo" livery which "Fearless" still carries the remains of. 50050 was one of the last two of the class (with 50007 "Sir Edward Elgar") to be withdrawn from mainline service in March 1994.
With hindsight the "Hoovers" (as they became known) were a classic case in how not to do procurement. Whilst the DP2 prototype upon which they were based was by all accounts a conventional and reliable machine, the specification for the production locomotives included unproven (to the UK at the time) new technologies such as a complex electronic control system, rheostatic braking, inertial air filtering and slow speed control (the latter never needed in service!). These contributed to poor reliability, and as a result the refurbishment programme they underwent was earlier and far more major than it might otherwise have needed to be.
For more information on the class 50 locomotives, please see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_50.