Reliability of Westerns

[Shrop]

A pub discussion arose recently about the reliability of various classes of diesel loco, during which I suggested that Westerns were among the more reliable while they were in service, not really deserving their early demise.

Can anyone point me to where this might have been discussed on here before, or alternatively comment on how reliable Westerns were compared to other classes? Were they withdrawn simply as part of a mass cull on all diesel hydraulics irrespective of how reliable they were, or did they actually deserve to be withdrawn after not much more than 10 years service?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I thought the DH problem was both the cost and availability of spares, rather than unreliability?
The £ was moving badly against the DM (and everything else) in the 70s.

 

[Pigeon]

The Westerns had no ETH and there was no room to install a generator to provide it. So, sadly, there they were doomed and doomed they were.

 

[6Gman]

I think Laira would say they were pretty good - some other depots perhaps less so! There was a definite issue with the match-up between engine and transmission. My understanding (and I'm no engineer) was that though individually they were sound equipment they did not "match up" very well and this caused problems.

They were a bit sluggish, but could churn out haulage capacity over sustained periods.

And the twin engines meant they could struggle on at half power when other (single engine) locos would be total failures.

 

[randyrippley]

Don't forget that the Sulzer type 4 classes - all of them, not just Brush - had serious engine problems and having 100 of them out of service together wasn't unusual. Downrating the version in the Brushes fixed some of the problems, but not all.
You've got to consider how the machines were repaired as well - Westerns I believe had to go to Swindon works for an engine lift, while a Brush could be done at Swindon - or on shed at Canton, deliberately built to service diesel-electrics, but not hydraulics.

 

[Taunton]

The matching of engines and transmissions, and the two power units with each other, seemed to be something of a dark art; some locos were notably good with it, and actually got segregated into a separate sub-fleet known as the "Golden Westerns", which were normally assigned to the Cornish Riviera, the Golden Hind (hence the name), the first newspaper train from Paddington to Cornwall (ran at Riviera speeds, vans on B4 bogies), etc.

And the twin power sets, even more independent than in the Warships (a lesson learned) meant you "can always get out of trouble with a Thousand".

ETH issue was indeed what did them in. Though they were even better on freight, shifting Mendip stone trains of a weight that the replacing Class 47 could not manage, hence some of the first Class 56 having to be sent down from Yorkshire to Westbury.

Engine change facilities were provided at Laira, just not at first. It's a lot easier to lift out a 1,350hp high speed compact engine than a 2,750hp heavyweight.

 

[randyrippley]

What did for the type 4 hydraulics?
There were 150 of them split over four classes compared with 512 class 47. Sheer weight of numbers meant that the hydraulics would be bound to go first in any rationalisation.
Spares became a problem for the Maybach engined machines when Rolls Royce acquired Bristol-Siddeley: they weren't interested in building German diesels. Hawker-Siddeley had never been keen on building them anyway as they competed with their own Mirrlees units. And presumably Hawkers saw more future business in supporting the 47 fleet than a few licence built engines. Same applies to Hymek vs 31
Spares for the MAN engined hydraulics became a problem when NBL went bust. They were expensive, and would have been problematic as the UK built engines were machined on old, worn, imperial measurement tooling, the German on metric.
BR built a new dedicated shed with heavy servicing capability at Canton for the 47 and 37 fleets. Nothing similar was built for the hydraulics.
Lack of ETH

==note of clarification==
Hawker-Siddeley owned or controlled Bristol-Siddeley, Mirrlees, and Brush.
Brush held the licence to build Maybach engines in the UK, but sub-licenced production to a Bristol-Siddeley site, which was not long after handed over to Rolls-Royce. Rolls had no interest in diesels, especially German ones

 

[Shrop]

Interesting comments and thanks to all who have posted. It sounds like there was a bit of a lottery involved, eg if only more depots could have serviced Westerns and if only there had been as many of them as there were 47s. Maybe if the 50s hadn't been displaced from Crewe-Glasgow too, and also that the 50s were newer?
I thought I heard in the mid 1970s, that some of the Westerns were deliberately neglected in order to make them fail, which in turn would justify their withdrawal, but that some of them just kept going and going? Or maybe that info was a bit embarrassing for the Decision Makers?

 

[randyrippley]

Not "neglected to make them fail", but simply run with minimal servicing until they failed. If you know a loco is due for withdrawal, there is no point giving it heavy servicing.
There would have been no need to justify the withdrawal - the decision had already been made based on the numbers.

As for "more depots to service them", you've got hold of the wrong end of the stick.
The point was Canton was set up as a single centre of excellence to work on 37s and 47s only and looked after the whole WR diesel electric fleet. No such centre of excellence was set up for the hydraulics, and repair work was scattered over OOC, Swindon, Bristol BR, Newton Abbot and Laira, often in dirty repurposed steam-era buildings. If a single hydraulic central depot had been set up, then maybe servicing would have been easier and costs reduced due to economy of scale

 

[Irascible]

I think Laira would say they were pretty good - some other depots perhaps less so! There was a definite issue with the match-up between engine and transmission. My understanding (and I'm no engineer) was that though individually they were sound equipment they did not "match up" very well and this caused problems.

They were a bit sluggish, but could churn out haulage capacity over sustained periods.

And the twin engines meant they could struggle on at half power when other (single engine) locos would be total failures.

The top torque converter is a bit long for the engine ( if you think of it in gearing terms ) iirc. Should maybe have tried uprating the engines to match it instead! two engines also means there's twice as many things to go wrong, of course.

the advantage of a DH is you can throw all you like at the transmission until the oil overheats, plus the wheels are coupled. The disadvantage is you'll never get the efficiency of a modern electric transmission in a large installation.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Rolls had no interest in diesels, especially German ones

Ironic that Rolls now owns MTU, supplying diesel engines for class 80x and others...

 

[matchmaker]

The lack of ETS was a major factor. Western Region had to compete with the opening of the M4 motorway and to do this had to introduce air conditioned Mk 2 stock on services to South Wales. The 52s couldn't be fitted with ETS. 50s had ETS from new and with the electrification of the WCML were available.

 

[Shrop]

Altogether some interesting responses to this thread - thanks to everyone who made comments

 

[Fleetwood Boy]

Weren't the Westerns already on their way out once the Class 50s were ordered? I'm sure I tread somewhere that it was always the plan to cascade the 50s to the WR, because electrification to Glasgow was factored into the future plans? So not so much that the WR realised they had to get rid of the Westerns and looked for a replacement; and more that their replacement was already planned.

 

[Harvester]

Weren't the Westerns already on their way out once the Class 50s were ordered? I'm sure I tread somewhere that it was always the plan to cascade the 50s to the WR, because electrification to Glasgow was factored into the future plans? So not so much that the WR realised they had to get rid of the Westerns and looked for a replacement; and more that their replacement was already planned.

No, the last Westerns to enter service were only a couple of years old when the Class 50s were ordered in the mid sixties. The latter were cascaded to the WR between 1973-76, which allowed most of the Westerns to be withdrawn during that period.

 

[Pigeon]

There was a definite issue with the match-up between engine and transmission. My understanding (and I'm no engineer) was that though individually they were sound equipment they did not "match up" very well and this caused problems.

Not "match up" as in "fit together", but matching in the power-transmission sense of impedance matching. The transmission matches the source impedance of the engine to the load impedance of the wheels, by selecting whichever of a given set of ratios is most appropriate for the conditions of speed and load. The "poor matching" problem is when the set of available ratios is badly chosen and speed/load combinations frequently arise for which none of them is very appropriate. In a car you might express this by saying, for instance, that the gearbox has a big gap between second and third, meaning that you have to rev the nuts off it in second and then chug it sluggishly in third as you accelerate, and it is more of a pain to drive than one where the ratios are less disparate.

With a torque converter transmission you don't have sets of fixed ratios, rather you have sets of bands of possible ratios, with the instantaneous ratio varying itself continuously and automatically within each band between the set limits; each band will have a particular point of greatest efficiency and become less efficient either side of that. The continuous variability gives you more accurate matching than is possible with a set of fixed ratios, and it is more tolerant of suboptimal selection of the ratio band limits, but because the efficiency curve is not flat the problem does still exist. The Westerns did have exactly the equivalent of a big gap between second and third, and the result was that their performance at speed was a bit disappointing compared to what had been expected and what the engine power would normally imply. It wasn't the sort of thing that made them go bang and stop pulling the train though.

There were rather a lot of awkward constraints on selecting the transmissions for the Westerns, for reasons such as the considerations of size, weight and alignment that caused difficulties with every large component in trying to get the overall design to fit the loading gauge and axle weight limits, and the shortage of suppliers considered suitable severely restricting the number of possibilities to choose from. It didn't become apparent until the design was well advanced that they had got into a bit of a hole and ended up with their options unduly restricted, so they were no longer able to select a transmission with as appropriate a set of ratios as they had intended.

Of course these days now that we can design torque converters using CFD instead of by hand...

As for "more depots to service them", you've got hold of the wrong end of the stick.
The point was Canton was set up as a single centre of excellence to work on 37s and 47s only and looked after the whole WR diesel electric fleet. No such centre of excellence was set up for the hydraulics, and repair work was scattered over OOC, Swindon, Bristol BR, Newton Abbot and Laira, often in dirty repurposed steam-era buildings. If a single hydraulic central depot had been set up, then maybe servicing would have been easier and costs reduced due to economy of scale

Of course there was an element of learning from experience going on there, but as I remember it the programme of setting up heavy mechanical facilities for servicing the hydraulics got booted in the gut through some funding/politics dropping, and ground slowly to a halt without ever providing the level of facilities that had been intended (Laira being late to get its engine lift facilities being one aspect of this). In particular the unit replacement system for engines and transmissions basically just never happened, so instead of whacking in a new lump and getting the loco back in service in a day or two while the one you'd taken out got repaired in a workshop built for the purpose, you'd have them sitting out of traffic for weeks while fitters guddled about swearing in the muck with everything in situ, and swearing even more when they couldn't get at things which according to the original idea they would never have had to get at in situ anyway. (Not to mention the supposed interchangeability of engines and transmissions coming apart because someone forgot where the bolt holes were supposed to go, but that was more by way of icing on the cake.) You could argue that since they nevertheless did manage to achieve availability figures of the same order as diesel-electrics and considerably better than some which outlasted them in the end, it's a point in their favour...

 

[Helvellyn]

BR was also rationalising it's diesel fleets before and after the end of steam. Both changes in traffic patterns and new trains (HSTs, WCML northern electrification) meant smaller fleets were harder to justify. 74 diesel hydraulics with no ETH meant you were realistically looking at freight use, and possibly over a bigger area than the WR. As has been mentioned, without that centre of excellence to match Canton for 37s/47s you would have still had scattered maintenance.

Plus if the 52s had stayed what would have been replaced instead? Earlier withdrawal for 40s or Peaks would really only be the option.

 

[Grumpy]

BR was also rationalising it's diesel fleets before and after the end of steam. Both changes in traffic patterns and new trains (HSTs, WCML northern electrification) meant smaller fleets were harder to justify. 74 diesel hydraulics with no ETH meant you were realistically looking at freight use, and possibly over a bigger area than the WR. As has been mentioned, without that centre of excellence to match Canton for 37s/47s you would have still had scattered maintenance.

Plus if the 52s had stayed what would have been replaced instead? Earlier withdrawal for 40s or Peaks would really only be the option.

Or not needing to spend scarce funds rushing into class 56 purchase

 

[Pigeon]

Interesting thought... Retain Westerns on stone traffic -> problem of 47s not being up to starting them doesn't arise -> no 56s -> no 56s not being available when needed -> no 59s -> no 66s -> ...?

 

[Irascible]

Was my rough thought, but how long before they started being unreliable enough that Yeomans got fed up with them too? would ypu spread them out on coal also?

 

[Kremlin Stooge]

Interesting thought... Retain Westerns on stone traffic -> problem of 47s not being up to starting them doesn't arise -> no 56s -> no 56s not being available when needed -> no 59s -> no 66s -> ...?

Quite likely the Class 60s wouldn’t have happened either, they were BR’s response to the haulage performance demonstrated by the 59s. Roger Ford covered that procurement process in various Modern Railways columns at the time.

Was my rough thought, but how long before they started being unreliable enough that Yeomans got fed up with them too? would ypu spread them out on coal also?

I don’t think Yeomans were fed up with the Westerns, more that BR simply made them unavailable by withdrawing them. Yeomans actually bought a Western for preservation, D1010 Western Campaigner which was disguised for many years as D1035 Western Yeoman. It operated like this on the West Somerset Railway under the custodianship of the Diesel & Electric Group at Williton.

 

[Cowley]

I don’t think Yeomans were fed up with the Westerns, more that BR simply made them unavailable by withdrawing them. Yeomans actually bought a Western for preservation, D1010 Western Campaigner which was disguised for many years as D1035 Western Yeoman. It operated like this on the West Somerset Railway under the custodianship of the Diesel & Electric Group at Williton.

I always thought that there were a few nods towards the style of the Westerns in the class 59 design.
Things like the valance around the buffers, the slight hood over the windscreens, the shape of the cab doors at the top and the way the first five were named, ie ‘Yeoman Enterprise’ vs ‘Western Enterprise’ etc.

 

[Kremlin Stooge]

I always thought that there were a few nods towards the style of the Westerns in the class 59 design.
Things like the valance around the buffers, the slight hood over the windscreens, the shape of the cab doors at the top and the way the first five were named, ie ‘Yeoman Enterprise’ vs ‘Western Enterprise’ etc.

I can’t remember the exact details now, not without digging through dusty old piles of Modern Railways, but I think it was a coincidence arising from a cab design that General Motors - ElectroMotive Division (GM-EMD) already had to hand for other export markets, though I definitely agree with you.

The naming policy, on the other hand, could well be seen as Yeomans light-heartedly trolling BR... (though I think 590005 Kenneth J Painter was named after one of the company directors who had a big hand in the decision to go for the 59s).

 

[Cowley]

I can’t remember the exact details now, not without digging through dusty old piles of Modern Railways, but I think it was a coincidence arising from a cab design that General Motors - ElectroMotive Division (GM-EMD) already had to hand for other export markets, though I definitely agree with you.

The naming policy, on the other hand, could well be seen as Yeomans light-heartedly trolling BR... (though I think 590005 Kenneth J Painter was named after one of the company directors who had a big hand in the decision to go for the 59s).

Thanks for the extra detail there. So it was just coincidence then? I’d always wondered about that.

 

[Kremlin Stooge]

Thanks for the extra detail there. So it was just coincidence then? I’d always wondered about that.

If I get time over the Christmas holidays I will have good rummage around my magazine archives, the history surrounding the 59s is probably worth a thread of its own.

 

[Cowley]

If I get time over the Christmas holidays I will have good rummage around my magazine archives, the history surrounding the 59s is probably worth a thread of its own.

I’m up for that. Definitely an interesting subject.

Going back to the Westerns, the last few that were in service seemed to do some sterling work considering the minimal maintenance. Or was the minimal maintenance not all it seemed?
I wonder how many non sanctioned repairs happened just to keep the fleet going until the final withdrawal date?

 

[Kremlin Stooge]

Going back to the Westerns, the last few that were in service seemed to do some sterling work considering the minimal maintenance. Or was the minimal maintenance not all it seemed?
I wonder how many non sanctioned repairs happened just to keep the fleet going until the final withdrawal date?

I think the minimal maintenance aspect is somewhat overplayed; true, there was a budget limit set on repairs, but if the thing could be got running within that budget then it was, though no doubt there was some ‘creative accounting’ at times! Plus factors like hours run since the last scheduled works attention would dictate whether a failure led to withdrawal or a sanctioned repair.

Also, at the time, BR had some difficulties across the rest of the fleet; delays to the squadron introduction of the Western Region HSTs, problems emerging with the proposed development of the Class 56, delays to the move southwestward of the 50s etc, so eking out the last few Westerns (with unsanctioned repairs) certainly helped fill the gaps.

 

[Irascible]

Quite likely the Class 60s wouldn’t have happened either, they were BR’s response to the haulage performance demonstrated by the 59s. Roger Ford covered that procurement process in various Modern Railways columns at the time.

I don’t think Yeomans were fed up with the Westerns, more that BR simply made them unavailable by withdrawing them. Yeomans actually bought a Western for preservation, D1010 Western Campaigner which was disguised for many years as D1035 Western Yeoman. It operated like this on the West Somerset Railway under the custodianship of the Diesel & Electric Group at Williton.

I seem to remember talk of Yeomans being pretty impressed with them - but not sure if that woukd stay that way for another decade plus!. There were far more than you need for Mendip stone but not enough to do all the work the 56s were built for, so what would or wouldn't have bedn built is not really ckear cut. Maybe no 56s & a hundred 58s later on...

Yeomans had a US switcher on site for some time before the 59s were thought up.

 

[londontransit]

Interesting thread as I remember the Westerns very well in my view they were reliable locomotives - maybe a bit of bias as quite a few are fans of the class including me!

Sometimes the 52s had a tendency to pump their acceleration, eg the locomotive would be sluggish then suddenly surge. However they certainly weren't underpowered and in the sixties as I recall were easily capable of hauling trains with twelve - fifteen coaches.

Being a regular traveller I remember the Westerns hauled Mk II stock since the earlier rakes were equipped also for steam heating. The introduction of the HSTs was more of a reason to get rid of the Westerns rather than the lack of ETH.

 

[341o2]

In the 1960's when Gerry Feinnes was manager of the WR, both the Westerns and Hymeks were affected by flawed axles, the entire fleet had to be grounded while an oscilloscope was brought over from the USA, leading him to comment "Why can't axles be properly constructed nowadays. George Stephenson could."