just curious, aside from the obvious getting dropped during delivery situation, are there any locos that had a very short service due to fire or damage?
There was a Railway Magazine article on this very subject a few years ago.
One of the most famous was probably the A4 4469 Sir Ralph Wedgwood, hit by a German bomb dropped on York shed early on the 29th of April, 1942. There is now a plaque on the spot. I believe there were also some 8Fs lost at sea when their ship was sunk by a U-boat. It might also be worth mentioning 46202 Princess Anne, which spent two months in service after being rebuild from a steam turbine engine only to be written off in the Harrow and Wealdstone disaster.
Think that was mentioned by OP
Those weren't accident damage though were they?
However, I do seem to recall that a 37 was written off very early on, as was a 40?
Many of the class 58s, 60s and EWS/DBS 90s were withdrawn long before they were anywhere near life expired. Same applies to Western Region diesel hydraulics, many of which were withdrawn for no other reason than being considered 'non-standard'.
what else could they have been efficiently used for?
so were they poor accelerators then? what was it about their performance cahracteristics made them unsuitable?
i like the noise they make.
I'm not sure that they were poor accelerators it's just there were other locos capable of doing stop start work already around and no need for the 100mph Deltics to do it. Also don't forget they were a completely non-standard class of 22 locos using a unique engine design. I would imagine that they were not the easiest of locos to maintain and also not particularly cheap either. Especially when compared to the hundreds of class 37s or 47s that BR had available to it. Could BR have carried on using them, yes. But why would it when there is a simpler, cheaper and more widespread option available?
They do make quite a nice noise
In a word, standardisation. Keeping the 50s within a fairly limited set of routes meant that a limited number of depots needed to keep up on their maintenance. 47s could go anywhere and be looked after anywhere....The thing I can't understand is why, when 50s have decent acceleration, they decided to use exclusively 47s on the inter-regionals. 47s aren't exactly fast out of the blocks either, and the 313s used to show them a clean pair of heels....
The Class 14 and 17 both had issues IIRC. I was thinking of very successful types that met the cutter's torch in spite of their usefulness.What about the Class 30s? The Mirrlees engines proved problematic and were replaced, adding the 30s into the Class 31 series.
The Teddy Bear Class 14s had a short career did they not? Also Class 17 Claytons.
Indeed. An object lesson in what happens to logic when governments get the bit between their teeth.... mostly far more reliable than some of the early diesel classes mentioned above!