In thinking about Riddles' decision to go for a range of standard steam locos in the first years of BR, three things to bear in mind - firstly, everyone then would have been well aware of the (then very recent) oil burning fiasco, which had seen much investment made and then wasted, when there was a realisation that the country couldn't afford the oil; second, at the time, the superiority of diesel was still unproven - his view was that the future was electric, once the investment could be afforded; and, third, the fact that he, and his chief assistants, had been young engineers on the LMS in the 1920s, not I think exactly a happy time, and had learnt a lesson in how not to integrate motive power fleets.
Perhaps the most interesting 'might have been' is that apparently GM/EMD made - about 1950 - an offer for their diesel engines to be licence built in Britain 'for the Empire Commonwealth' (I forget by whom) - not proceeded with, a subsequent policy change meant all EMD prime movers were made in the USA.
I have written about this before, but it bears repeating. The Railway Executive (RE), the agency of the British Transport Commission (BTC) which was responsible for the railways, did not understand that the world had changed dramatically from that of 1939.
Some 350,000 men had been killed during the War - all of them fit and most of them young. As the country reverted to a civilian economy there were serious labour shortages. Wages were increasing, it was becoming increasingly difficult to attract staff to the dirty jobs done during unsocial hours which is part of steam railway operations. Yet the RE continued to build motive power and operate train services using labour intensive technologies and methods as if it were still 1939.
The BTC was, from the very start, concerned that the RE was not studying the potential of newer forms of traction and wrote to the Railway Executive to this end in April 1948. In comparison to the RE’s speed in setting up its Locomotive Standards Committee on 8th January 1948, within a week of the RE being formed, its reaction to this letter was grudging. It set up a Committee in December 1948 which reported 2 1/2 years later - by which time the BR ‘Standard’ classes of steam locomotives were a fait accompli.
Essentially it had already made its mind up and wasn’t to be diverted from its chosen path. This isn’t to criticise the need to built a number of steam locomotives quickly to replace all those very worn out and ancient machines that would have gone earlier if the War had not intervened but this aim could have been achieved by building more of the modern and efficient Big Four designs than actually were built. The design effort spent on the ‘Standards’ could have gone into refining the existing main line diesels and railcars and operating these would have given valuable real-life experience. Another ten years of experience would have weeded out those lemons that the inexperienced BTC purchased as a result of the 1955 Modernisation Plan - by then it should have been clear which of Ruston, Paxman, Napier, English Electric, Sulzer, Crossley and so on and so forth should have received production orders.
And the staff would have been available to operate and maintain these trains. Technology had advanced tremendously during the War. Many, if not all, of those being demobbed had experience of high speed internal combustion engines - all those lorries, jeeps, tanks and aircraft - as well as electronic communications.
The issue about not being able to buy oil is a red herring. In 1946 there were 1.7 million private cars registered for use on the road and although petrol was rationed ordinary people could buy it. By 1950 there were nearly 2 million cars - if one includes buses, lorries, motorbikes and so on there were nearly 4 million road vehicles licenced. Much oil came from Persia which was in the Sterling Area and the crude paid for in Sterling. The country was awash with oil - it and the refining and distribution infrastructure had just driven armies across half of Europe, powered thousands of war planes and a huge fleet of ships. A few hundred, or even thousands of, gallons of oil for a few diesel locomotives and railcars would not even have been noticed.
