My favourite Class of loco was first envisaged in 1974 after BR identified the requirement for a powerful freight locomotive design. Brush Traction won the contract to create the first batch of 30 machines, and sub-contracted the work to Electroputere, a Brush subsidiary company in Romania.
Unfortunately this was largely a disaster, with the locomotives arriving in the UK with all manner of faults and defects which then took hundreds of man-hours to put right. As 30 more machines had been built with slightly more success by BREL at Doncaster, BR eventually awarded the remaining orders to them. With the final 20 constructed in 1983-4 at BREL's Crewe Works, the fleet totaled 135 machines.
After such a turbulent start, things did not settle for long. The huge Ruston Paxman 16RK3CT power unit was (arguably) an overstressed oily lump that made engine room conditions unpleasant to say the least. While fairly popular with drivers, they could be quite rough-riding and suffered braking and coolant problems which along with the cramped engine room conditions made them the bane of many depot fitters.
However, from an enthusiasts' point of view when they did work you would be hard pressed to find anything more earth-shatteringly loud and demonic on UK rails, their tendency to blast flames from their exhaust ports being a favourite trick. Nicknamed "Grids", the Class retains a solid following with several already having entered preservation. Here is what someone (who will remain nameless! ;o) said about 56s on the Preserved-Diesels forum:
"Basically, they are sick. 56s are rabid. They are the most rough-riding, oily, unruly, lairy, what-are-you-looking-at, skinheaded, thuggish, brutal monstrosities that ever darkened the rails of this country.
Take a train, any train at all - a 56 will move it. Too heavy, the beast will simply pull the coupling out. They are rottweilers - you can't actually drive one, it just does whatever the f**k it wants. That thing on the front isn't a grille, it's a muzzle. Drivers will tell you the power handle is just for show. A 56 only has two settings; Off and Maximum.
If you ever saw a Class 58 with a dent in the bodywork, a Class 56 did it. If you tried to drive a Class 31 to Knottingley, it would immediately fail - it would not want to share a shed with the Grids... because it would get battered.
The word "hellfire" was invented to describe the Class 56!"
They were withdrawn en-masse in March 2004 so I'm afraid I have very few pictures of the beasts in action, but with Fastline now operating 3 in the UK, 5 preserved examples so far and the foreign infrastructure contracts also coming to an end, it hopefully wont be too long before this gallery expands. More of my pictures concerning this Class may be found in various gala sections elsewhere on the site. Did I mention that they are my favourite Class? |
