British class 56 made by ELECTROPUTERE Craiova-Romania

[djmk1988]

Does someone have any information about the BRUSH-ELECTROPUTERE CRAIOVA class 67 locomotives made in Romania in the mid 70s for the british railways ??

 

[EM2]

I think this would be Class 56, not 67, as 67s were built by Alstom in 1999-2000.
The Class 56 Group may be a good place to start: http://www.class56group.co.uk/

 

[djmk1988]

I think this would be Class 56, not 67, as 67s were built by Alstom in 1999-2000.
The Class 56 Group may be a good place to start: http://www.class56group.co.uk/

That's true, my mistake . They were indeed class 56 . Thanks for the info mate. Cheers, Mario Alexandru.

 

[Kneedown]

56001-030 built in Romania. We worked a lot of these when i was based at Toton. They weren't as well put together as the BREL built versions and not as user friendly. For instance the Goods/Passenger changeover switch (This sets the train brake to release quickly for a passenger train, slower for a freight train to reduce "snatching") was located next to the distributor, just behind the cab on a BREL built example, but halfway down the "A Bank" side of the engine on a Romanian 56, meaning that when you checked the switch on prep you had to squeeze down the cramped A Bank side, generally getting covered in oil and grease in the process, and fumbling around for it in almost total darkness as the engine room lights weren't brilliant. 56 horns were also notorious for sticking, necessitating easy access to the isolating cock. On a BREL this was under a flap conveniently situated by your right foot. On a Romanian one you had to get your screwdriver out and remove the panel underneath the stove on the secondmans side to access it. If you had a secondman he could do this, otherwise you had to stop the train and do it yourself.
On the other hand, the Romanian one's seemed to build up power a lot more quickly than the BREL built one's, and were real flyers!
As built, the Romanian versions had the plate over the horn, as opposed to the grid, although early BREL examples also had the plate. As time went on a few of the Romanian one's gained a grid, mostly as a result of collision repair. I remember 004 certainly had a grid at one end, maybe even both i don't remember.

That's all i can remember off hand, but when i get a chance i'll look out my old 33056 manuals and see if they detail any other differences.

Hope this helps.

 

[djmk1988]

56001-030 built in Romania. We worked a lot of these when i was based at Toton. They weren't as well put together as the BREL built versions and not as user friendly. For instance the Goods/Passenger changeover switch (This sets the train brake to release quickly for a passenger train, slower for a freight train to reduce "snatching") was located next to the distributor, just behind the cab on a BREL built example, but halfway down the "A Bank" side of the engine on a Romanian 56, meaning that when you checked the switch on prep you had to squeeze down the cramped A Bank side, generally getting covered in oil and grease in the process, and fumbling around for it in almost total darkness as the engine room lights weren't brilliant. 56 horns were also notorious for sticking, necessitating easy access to the isolating cock. On a BREL this was under a flap conveniently situated by your right foot. On a Romanian one you had to get your screwdriver out and remove the panel underneath the stove on the secondmans side to access it. If you had a secondman he could do this, otherwise you had to stop the train and do it yourself.
On the other hand, the Romanian one's seemed to build up power a lot more quickly than the BREL built one's, and were real flyers!
As built, the Romanian versions had the plate over the horn, as opposed to the grid, although early BREL examples also had the plate. As time went on a few of the Romanian one's gained a grid, mostly as a result of collision repair. I remember 004 certainly had a grid at one end, maybe even both i don't remember.

That's all i can remember off hand, but when i get a chance i'll look out my old 33056 manuals and see if they detail any other differences.

Hope this helps.

Those informations are more than precious , Kneedown. Can you give me more fault examples in the romanian built locomotives ? How long were they in service ? Were they apreciated somehow because of the bigger power ?

 

[gazthomas]

Disposal information, plus other current info can be found here:

http://www.wnxx.com/disposals/class56.htm

 

[Boothby97]

Only 4 remain:
56006 BR Blue Preserved at Barrow Hill (owned by the 56 Group)
56007 Fertis Grey Stored at Burton Depot (owned by Ed Stevenson)
56018 Fertis Grey Stored at Washwood Heath, undergoing restoration for mainline use by DCR (owned by Mark Winter)
56312 (ex 56003) DCR Grey In use on the mainline (owned/operated by DCR)

Thanks, Sam

 

[Kneedown]

Those informations are more than precious , Kneedown. Can you give me more fault examples in the romanian built locomotives ? How long were they in service ? Were they apreciated somehow because of the bigger power ?

From a Drivers point of view i don't recall any other faults that were unique to the Romanian built examples. They were a bit of a faff when loading a coal train as the slow speed control had a tendency to fight against controlling brake applications, causing lurching, making it hard to maintain a steady 1mph. The train brake also only had set steps, rather than being infinitely variable, so one step may not be enough to control your train speed when loading, but the next may be a little too much, again causing the Slow Speed unit to lurch and fight against itself. This was common to all 56's though.
I believe the maintenance staff were not overly fond of them as i think they were harder to work on with equipment being in hard to access places etc.

Most Drivers preferred the comfort of the 58's (Even though they couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding) and 60's (Hard to fault)
Some even preferred a pair of rattly, bouncy class 20's as there was a misguided belief that two engines were better than one, the fact that if one class 20 engine shut down on one of our uphill, slippery colliery branches then you were still not going to get where you wanted to go, was conveniently overlooked.

Me personally? Give me a 56 any day, Romanian or otherwise. For all the niggles when loading trains, they had power, were reasonably comfortable, fun to drive and sounded gorgeous winding up to full power!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
P.S:- If you check out the album on my profile page, you will find a pic of me at the controls of one of Romania's finest. 014, complete with grid!

 

[kevinwaltets]

Glad to see driving a 56 gave you a big smile on your face.

Kevin

 

[Kneedown]

Glad to see driving a 56 gave you a big smile on your face.

Kevin

If you're referring to the pic in the album, it's a pretty poor quality scan of a 35mm photo that doesn't exactly flatter me, and i'm no oil painting at the best of times!

 

[12CSVT]

Another design fault on the Romanian batch I seem to recall reading about is that the middle axle bearing on each bogie was the wrong profile.

 

[djmk1988]

Another design fault on the Romanian batch I seem to recall reading about is that the middle axle bearing on each bogie was the wrong profile.

True ! Many locomotives built by Electroputere Craiova in the 70s had this particular problem and ended up rusting in depots.

Another true aspect that Kneedown is revealing is the brake in steps . Kindly all Romanian built locomotives have the same break valve system in steps ( which i supose are swedish invention, as Romanian locomotive plants had license from Swedish manufactors ) . There were more than 60 tipes of locomotives built in my country during the comunist era , which were built for our railways and for export. Those were great days for my country. Pitty that the locomotive plants ended up entirely at the scrapyard. As a mention, we had two tipes built by Electroputere Craiova between 1976-1982 , who had mostly the same construction as the british 56's , but instead they used 3000 or 4000 hp ALCO license motors . They were low quality built , but they were flying with huge freight compounds , miles long.

I was glad enough to find out, late that's true, that my country manufactured locomotives for hundreads of countryes all over the world.

I know that one or two british class 56's were kept for our railways as well , having a blue/white/red colour scheme. Hope i still have some pictures somewhere.