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HS4000 Kestral...

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exbrel

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hi,
as a old Crewe works man, I have a memory of the above loco entering the works, possible for checks and the word was it was being shipped to Russia. Back in the 60/70's being a semi lapsed spotter, anything special ie named loco's or specials always warranted a cab and walk thru... with Kestral it was because she was special, and I remember thinking how would the Russian crews get thru the gang-ways. Anyone have a year for this visit?.
Also when the open days were coming up Diesels and Steam visitors were given a check up or paint job plus the aforementioned cab/walk thru... happy memories.
 
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Ash Bridge

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hi,
as a old Crewe works man, I have a memory of the above loco entering the works, possible for checks and the word was it was being shipped to Russia. Back in the 60/70's being a semi lapsed spotter, anything special ie named loco's or specials always warranted a cab and walk thru... with Kestral it was because she was special, and I remember thinking how would the Russian crews get thru the gang-ways. Anyone have a year for this visit?.
Also when the open days were coming up Diesels and Steam visitors were given a check up or paint job plus the aforementioned cab/walk thru... happy memories.

I think it was probably 1971 as HS4000 Kestrel visited Crewe Works for re- bogieing before being handed over to Russia's railway authorities at a location known as Scherbinka on the 16th July of that year.
 

muddythefish

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I saw Kestrel at Kings Cross around 1970-71. It was a beautiful and powerful looking locomotive, a triumph of design. Pity it was never put into production.
 

randyrippley

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I saw Kestrel at Kings Cross around 1970-71. It was a beautiful and powerful looking locomotive, a triumph of design. Pity it was never put into production.

It would never have happened
The thing was a railcrusher, even after it was retrofitted with class 47 bogies, and Sulzer abandoned development of the diesel engine: they sold all the rights to GEC
 

hexagon789

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I saw Kestrel at Kings Cross around 1970-71. It was a beautiful and powerful looking locomotive, a triumph of design. Pity it was never put into production.

Too heavy, if they could've got the axle-loading down to within that specified then it might have been more successful, certainly it's power was immense, I believe it gained 30 mins on a Deltic-timed run to Newcastle and without significantly exceeding 100mph.
 

Steamysandy

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I saw Kestrel at a Cricklewood depot open day in 1969. It was my second visit to London and the Sunday was a scorcher!
 

exbrel

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A slight thread drift, but as I mentioned in my original post we had some specials into Crewe works, there were the Midland Pullman, in the early 60's, Coronation Scot the Duchess of Hamilton when I saw it all the streamlining plates were stacked by it, I thought i'm glad i'm not replacing those... a LNER A.4 not sure which, but we tried out the walk thru the tender, as I said a lot of my "visits" to the cabs was on the week previous to the open days.
 

Taunton

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I think it was probably 1971 as HS4000 Kestrel visited Crewe Works for re- bogieing before being handed over to Russia's railway authorities at a location known as Scherbinka on the 16th July of that year.
I think it had been in the SZD Soviet Railways' hands for some time beforehand, having been shipped as deck cargo and then taken to an SZD works to be re-gauged. Shcherbinka (Ще́рбинка) was the old SZD research institute, just south of Moscow, which had extensive test facilities and a circular test track, which is still there https://www.google.com/maps/search/shchkerbinka/@55.515251,37.5487102,3398m/data=!3m1!1e3 . The engine was later taken out and used as a static generator, which like many large diesels suited it better than the constant variability and vibration of traction.

The big 12-cylinder Sulzer engine used in the Peaks and Class 47 was two parallel 6-cylinder blocks side-by-side, connected to the generator by gearing. The engine in HS4000 was a pioneer (I think unique) 16-cylinder V engine, so had just one crankshaft instead of two; the same concept had been used for the 12-cylinder V engine experimentally put into five of the Class 47. Sulzer never seemed to get to grips with all this power in a single crankshaft, and SNCF who bought quite a number of the 12-cyl V Sulzers had the same issues with it. The Soviets built both basic types in parallel, although like the USA they favoured 2-stroke diesels.
 
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RLBH

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The big 12-cylinder Sulzer engine used in the Peaks and Class 47 was two parallel 6-cylinder blocks side-by-side, connected to the generator by gearing. The engine in HS4000 was a pioneer (I think unique) 16-cylinder V engine, so had just one crankshaft instead of two; the same concept had been used for the 12-cylinder V engine experimentally put into five of the Class 47. Sulzer never seemed to get to grips with all this power in a single crankshaft, and SNCF who bought quite a number of the 12-cyl V Sulzers had the same issues with it. The Soviets built both basic types in parallel, although like the USA they favoured 2-stroke diesels.
My understanding is that the 12LVA24 had issues with the bearings because Sulzer had supplied faulty gauges. SNCF's fitters figured this out, but BR's fitters - probably because there were only a handful of locomotives - didn't. There may also have been issues with the fabricated crankcase, but evidently this was less of a concern since the SNCF 12LVA24s lasted into the 1990s.

On paper at least, the V-engine ought to have been more satisfactory than the twin-bank engine. Kestrel's engine was probably more highly stressed than the engine in the Class 48s (the 16-cylinder version at that time was a 3,500hp engine) which may have reduced reliability.
 

randyrippley

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FWIW I have read that the top end and valve gear in the engines in the 56 and 58 owe more to Sulzer inspiration than EE.
Following the class 48 fiasco and the universal lack of interest in the Kestrel engine, Sulzer gave up and sold the rights to GEC, who used the technology in the Ruston-Paxman RK3 range
 

Taunton

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Sulzer were a bit of a strange company. From landlocked Switzerland they developed diesel engines for ships, which as elsewhere were then adapted for rail. Sulzer did the design, and their engineers hand-built the pre-production units, but volume production was contracted out to different conntries, often to those with shipyard facilities who were building diesels for ships. Most of the UK engines were thus built by Vickers-Armstrong at their Barrow shipyard, while the SNCF engines were built by SACM in Paris. Likewise the different engines were often just variations on a theme, with different numbers of standard-spec cylinders and different amounts of turbocharging into the same cylinder design. Sulzer were into various other mechanical engineering products, like textile weaving machines and industrial pumps.

I believe a fair number of BR (and SNCF) engineers made the trip to the Sulzer works in Winterthur near Zurich over time. There was a member of the public posted some reminiscences here a while ago, whose father from BR Derby had made various business trips to Switzerland in the 1960s. I think we can guess who he was going to visit. I have to say that Sulzer probably couldn't teach the Soviets much about diesel traction, they must have been second only to the USA in the number built, and a good number from the onetime SZD era are still running.
 
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Rockhopper

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If you can get hold of back issues of “The Railway Magazine” they did a big feature on Kestrel - it might have been about eighteen months ago perhaps.
 

Alanko

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I quite like the idea that there is a bit of Kestrel out there in Russia somewhere. I found a discussion on another forum where somebody had spent quite some time scouring Google Earth, and reckoned they had found it.

These images are interesting at least.

Kestrelfinal.jpg


4392374_m.jpg
 

Cowley

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I quite like the idea that there is a bit of Kestrel out there in Russia somewhere. I found a discussion on another forum where somebody had spent quite some time scouring Google Earth, and reckoned they had found it.

These images are interesting at least.

Kestrelfinal.jpg


4392374_m.jpg
Great photos. Any idea when they were taken?
 

hexagon789

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Thanks for that. It looks in pretty good condition still.
I always loved the look of it.

I know, like a 47 but more stylish. I always think it's such a shame they didn't progress the design and produce a production class.
 

Alanko

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randyrippley

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Google translate came up with a legible version of the gibberish at http://ivan1950.tripod.com/Disel-Kestrel.html

In 1971, the Machinoimport All-Union Association acquired the HS400 six-axle diesel locomotive built in 1967 by the British firm Brush electrical engineering Co LTD. This locomotive was demonstrated at the International Exhibition "Rolling Stock of Railways-71" at st. Shcherbinka Moscow road in 1971

Carrier-type diesel locomotive body is made with pre-stressed lining. The driver’s cabs rest on the lower frame through the rubber elements. The length of the locomotive on the buffer 20269 mm. The frames of the carts consist of two sides, two transverse intermediate beams and two end shaped beams. Jaw type bushings. The balance weight rests on the two adjacent axle boxes of each side. Trolley frame through four sets of coil springs supported by four balancers.

The diameter of the new wheels 1092 mm. Gear wheels with elasticity elements are planted on the axis of the wheelset. One-way transmission, gear ratio 19: 60 = 1: 3.15. The total wheelbase of the locomotive is 15748 mm, the wheelbase of the carts is 4547 mm, and the distance between the 1st and 2nd axles and the 6th and 5th axles is 2210 mm.

Traction motors on one side are suspended from the truck's cross beams, and on the other, through the hollow cylinder, they rest on the axles of the wheel sets. Roller bearings are placed between the hollow cylinder and the axle of the wheelset.

The diesel locomotive is equipped with a sixteen-cylinder four-stroke Zulzer 16LVA24 diesel engine with turbocharging and oil cooling. The diesel engine with a shaft speed of 1100 rev / min develops a rated power of 4000 hp. The cylinder diameter of the diesel engine is 240 mm, the piston stroke is 280 mm. Dry diesel weight 18,500 kg. Fuel consumption in nominal mode 167 g / (e.h.p.). Diesel oil is cooled with water in the heat exchanger, and water in the radiators.

The diesel engine drives the rotor of the three-phase synchronous generator BL-120-50 / IOP, which is rigidly connected to the shaft of the diesel engine, to rotate. The generator is designed as a machine with a ten-pole rotor and brushless excitation. At the end of the shaft of the traction generator is placed the rotor of the pathogen, the stator of the pathogen along with silicon rectifiers built into it is mounted on the body of the traction generator.

The alternating current produced by the traction generator using a rectifier, consisting of 84 S20G silicon diodes No. 301 and 302 A for 300 A, is converted into a direct current. At the output of the installation at a frequency of rotation of the shaft of a diesel engine of 1100 rev / min, a power of 2520 kW (3110 A, 810 V) or 2510 kW (4980 A, 504 V) can be obtained.

Traction motors TM73-68M are four-pole. When the air is supplied through an electric motor of 85 m 3 / min, it has a power of 379 kW (830 A, 504 V, 681 r / min) or 374 kW (900 A, 464 V, 610 r / min). Electric motor weight with gear 2806 kgf.

The shaft of the traction generator through a gearbox with a gear ratio of 2.5 and a clutch is connected to a DC generator and a synchronous auxiliary three-phase current generator. The DC generator is used to charge the battery and power the DC motors of fuel and oil pumps, compressors and other auxiliary machines. The power of this generator is 40.3 kW (448 A, 110 V); The generator is used as a starter when starting a diesel engine. From the auxiliary generator, three-phase current is supplied by asynchronous electric motors of fans of traction electric motors and refrigerators: from the same generator, the rectified current is fed to the heating devices of the cars of the passenger train. Auxiliary generator power 530 kW.

The locomotive has a rheostatic braking, while the electric motor of the fan that cools the brake resistors, is powered by one of the traction electric motors operating in generator mode.

The weight of the locomotive is 126 tf, the maximum speed is 177 km / h. Thrust at a maximum speed of 4500 kgf, at a speed of 30 km / h - 27000 kgf, at a speed of 45 km / h - 18700 kgf.

The locomotive was initially operated and tested on a 1,435 mm gauge on British Railways, and after it was equipped in 1971 with automatic couplings and wheel pairs of 1,520 mm gauge - on the experimental ring of the Central Research Institute of Railway Ministry and a number of railway sections of the Soviet Union.

4000 hp six-axle locomotive Company Brush, often referred to in our literature as "Kestrel", after the tests until the mid-80s was in VNITI, and may be there now, if not written off as scrap metal.

The objectives of its acquisition are not entirely clear, because information obtained as a result of his tests could be found partly from the technical literature, partly through the acquisition and bench testing of individual units. IMHO, this was not the most interesting locomotive to learn.

The running gear of the Kestrel is a two-axle jaw trolley with a two-stage spring suspension, according to the scheme of American heat carrier trucks of the early 50s. The first stage is with inter-axle balancers, the second stage is of the lyulechny type. Due to the well-developed design, this trolley made it possible to realize a design speed of up to 200 km / h; however, in terms of weight and dimensions, it was significantly inferior to domestic ones. The practical interest was represented by separate units: motor-axial bearings, UZK of traction gear, suspension of TED with spherical silent block.

The excessively large dimensions and weight of the carts caused a number of problems with the layout of the units inside the body. Developers had to hang up the motor - a compressor under the body (!), Use roof coolers. The passages in the engine room were too narrow; in the winter, the brigade was difficult to climb. To facilitate the body itself, it was necessary to perform it in the form of a pre-stressed structure, with a bearing shell attached to the frame using resistance spot welding. By the beginning of the 80s, contact welding places rusted and fell out of pressing with a finger. With regard to our operating conditions, such a solution can hardly be considered acceptable.

Kestrel did not enter trial operation, however, for another reason - the fact is that, because of the low front cabin window, the diesel locomotive could only be controlled by sitting. Standing was not visible neither the path nor the signals.

After the end of the first test cycle, the power plant was removed from the locomotive and mounted in VNITI as a diesel test bench, the body was loaded with ballast for dynamic tests under increased load. In the late 70s, the Kestrel locomotive was installed on a branch inside the VNITI courtyard, on the Oka side, and was no longer used.


copyright remains with the Russian author, Ivan Andreev
 
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