Britain's Most Powerful Diesel - HS4000 Kestrel

one of the first private locomotive building ventures of the nationalized British Railways era and a machine that had the potential to be among the fastest and most powerful Diesel locomotives in the UK the Hawker sidley HS 4000 Castrol was intended as a replacement for the complicated twin engine designs of the class 52 Western and class 55 deltics but would unfortunately never be taken up for production and end its days in obscurity deep in the heart of the Soviet Union the story behind the development of krol came following the introduction of the class 52 Western diesel hydraulic Express locomotives and the napia deltic powered class 55s of the East Coast Mainline among the fastest and most powerful Diesel engines that work in the UK and the only classes to be categorized under the type five designation for power classification which encompassed locomotives with a power output greater than 3 ,000 horsepower however both the Western and the deltics were extremely complex machines due to their use of two power units per locomotive in order to perform at their designated top speeds while also providing redundancy in the event of engine failure though this had the unfortunate effect of increasing their maintenance and operational costs when compared to single- engined machines such as the class 47 at the time British Railways were considering the creation of a new and exceptionally powerful Express passenger locomotive that would be capable of 125 mph dub the class 51 which would be built by English electric at their Vulcan Foundry in cheshier and would essentially be class 55 mechanics fitted into the body of an upcoming class 50 though ultimately the class 51 would never reach fruition as the priorities of the British government favored such projects as the HST and the advanced passenger train however the need to develop a less complicated Express passenger locomotive capable of the highest possible speeds was still a hotly debated topic and in order to answer this perceived call from the British rail management a Consortium of brush electrical engineering and the Sola Brothers company of Vinter Thor Switzerland began Concepts during 1965 for a new type five locomotive to work on Britain's Railways The Machine's main selling point was its use of one power unit to do the work of twin engined locomotive such as the Western and the deltics and would be capable of operating in both Freight and passenger applications while weighing no more than 126 tons a 4,000 horsepower single engine being proposed for the machine that would use the latest in AC diesel electric transmission technology much of the electrical design behind the upcoming machine had been pioneered on the North British prototype 10800 Hawk which was built in 1950 and Illustrated such woeful unreliability that it was withdrawn from use after only two years of applying its trade on the southern region although much of the technology behind its diesel electric AC transmission was theoretically sound and thus the locomotive was bought by brush in 1960 so as to inform their future engine projects for power rather than utilizing an upgrated version of the 12 cylinder Sola 12 LDA 28 found in over 700 British Railways locomotives the company instead built their most powerful prime mover ever in the form of the 16 lva 24 16 cylinder engine with the cylinders arranged in two v-shaped banks that delivered 4,000 horsepower at 1,100 RPM this was coupled to a brush alternator Exciter and combined train heating auxiliary generator with a smaller Dino start unit also Incorporated to turn over the engine for starting and to provide direct current power for battery charging engine priming pumps exhausters and compressors the main alternator was a 10 pole 3phas Salient pole machine with a brushless exiter supplying power for the six traction Motors the alternating current output being rectified in a bank of 84 silicon diode 3phase Bridge connected rectifiers that with the engine running at 1,100 RPM would Supply a continuous output of 3,110 amps the six traction motors for the locomotive were DC operated four Pole Series wound machines Force ventilated with 3,000 cubic feet of air per minute and each rated at 515 horsepower the individual Motors being mounted on a suspension tube concentric with the axle it drove and flexibly attached to the bogey frame via a bracket attached to the motor casing Drive was transmitted to the axle through a Spur type reduction gearing enclosed in an oil bath gear case the driven gear wheel incorporating bonded rubber units to give tortional resilience to to damp out vibration in the drive and the gear ratio chosen would permit a continuous speed of 110 mph 10 mph faster than the deltics and even many of the early AC electrics such as the class 81 85 and 86 another highly Advanced feature of the locomotive would be its fitting of three small racks with detachable modules incorporating plug-in printed circuit boards forming the core of the solid state control system with transducers providing the control system system with a variety of readings from which appropriate action was selected external sockets allowed for Diagnostic fault finding or monitoring during normal operation with those operations controlled electronically including load regulation traction motor field divert Dynamic braking wheel slip engine temperature train heating overload protection and automatic voltage regulation of the AC and DC circuits as for the body shell much of the design came from the earlier class 47 of 1962 adopting a stressed skin without conventional underframe or chassis and the cabs received a stylish streamlined treatment by wils and Ashmore the locomotive designated Works number 7-Eleven was laid down at the brush Factory in luthro during 1966 and by late 1967 the Hawker sidley or HS 4000 was rolled out of the plant Haus sidley being the parent company of brush traction and was thus used to help Mar at the machine as a private Venture both within the UK and abroad on paper the machine presented many endearing qualities demonstrating that its 4,000 horsepower prime mover which made it the most powerful single engine diesel locomotive in the world could Propel a lengthy passenger train up to speeds of 125 mph another interesting feature being its proposed use for pushpull operations as had been introduced with class 73s and 4tc stock on electric services to Wayman essentially a precursor to the class 91s and their inter city 225 sets that would emerge 20 years later however the arrival of the HS 4000 officially christened the name Kestrel on January 29th 1968 during a ceremony at London marib bone station was unfortunately ill timed as during the same year British Rail had committed itself to the delivery of a new tilting train project that would revolutionize high-speed passenger trains on the UK Network this coming to pass as the ultimately ill- fated Advanced passenger train or a furthermore the need for extremely powerful mixed traffic diesel locomotives of the kind illustrated by the class 52 Western class 55 deltic and kestral were now considered obsolete by the management and thus the HS 4000 was soon left without a role to serve on the British Rail System this situation not helped following an assessment by the Darby works during the same month where it was found that the estol weighed 133 tons considerably over br's desired 20 ton per axle limit trials continued though and Kestrel would undergo tests over shap Summit in Cumbria where it was able to haul a 24 coach train over the challenging Ascent at 46 mph followed in May 1968 by its introduction on coal trains out of shybrook handling two roundt trips a day 5 days a week with loaded coal trains to a maximum of, 1600 tons by mid August the locomotive had racked up an impressive 14,000 miles with an 88% availability though the issue of its weight still required rectification resulting in the fitting of class 47 Bogies during May 1969 meaning the engine could still be used on higher speed passenger trains but with a reduced continuous rating due to the traction Motors in the class 47 Bogies being smaller regardless Kestrel would continue to see regular operation across the Network primarily on the Eastern region until June 1971 at which point the locomotive was withdrawn for engine removal and overhaul at the vicus Armstrong Works in Barrow returning briefly to work on Mansville to Whitmore Freight runs however following its overhaul Kestrel would find itself being procured by an unlikely customer resultant of a chance encounter during 1969 between head of brush traction FH bezant and Dr na fansy deputy director of the all Union Railway scientific research institute for the Soviet Union as part of an exchange program to Britain by the Soviet Railway delegation from the ministry of ways and Communications beasant suggested Kestrel could be sold to the Soviet Union in order to form the basis of a new single-engine diesel locomotive design to power trains across the vast and often remote Russian Network where a strong but simple machine would be ideal for areas without immediate access to repair facilities thus on July 8th 1971 Kestrel was transferred to Cardiff docks where upon it was shipped to Leningrad in the Soviet Union making its Russian debut at the railroad Rolling Stock 71 exhibition in Sher binka south of Moscow thestrals employ by the Soviet authorities was more as an assessment of its mechanics rather than its performance as a standalone locomotive thus the machine had a very short operational career with the Russians before its power unit was removed and Ed statically from 1974 while the locomotive shell was ballasted with concrete and employed as a dead load vehicle for trials by other forms of Rolling Stock by the turn of the 1980s Kestrel was reported to have been in a very poor cosmetic condition due to Advanced corrosion and would remain languishing at shinka until 1993 at which point the heavily decayed Hulk was dismantled for study by engineering students and then scrapped the 4,000 horsepower engine was also eventually broken up once testing was completed by the Soviet authorities though three surviving examples of the 16 cylinder Prime movers remain in use as backup generators for French and swiss nuclear power stations while British rails need for more powerful Diesel locomotives would ultimately be answered by way of the class 56 in the end the Hawker sidley HS 4000 krol despite having an incredibly brief career was an interesting concept as to delivering what could have been the fastest Express passenger locomotive to operate on Britain's Railways at the time while concurrently its 4,000 horsepower prime mover made this machine undeniably the most powerful single-engine diesel locomotive in the world up to that point however a change in priorities by British Rail in the face of the advanced passenger train together with it not meeting their stringent weight restrictions meant the applications for Kestrel were extremely limited and as with so many of the early diesel prototypes of the 1950s and 60s a short career and an inauspicious end seemed to be inevitable for this curious machine

Channel: Ruairidh MacVeigh

Views: 86,775

Keywords: emu, diesel, express, multiple unit, rail, train, electric locomotive, passenger, shunter, trains, dmu, branch, diesel locomotive, class, engine, mainline, railways, steam locomotive, locomotive, freight, railway, track, Class 52, Class 55, Western, Deltic, Class 52 Western, Class 55 Deltic, Hawker Siddeley HS4000 Kestrel, Hawker Siddeley, Hawker Siddeley HS4000, HS4000, Kestrel, HS4000 Kestrel, Sulzer, 10800 Hawk, British Rail 10800, Sulzer Brothers, Brush Electrical Engineering, Soviet Union, Soviet

Id: vpAddslK2QY

Length: 12min 25sec (745 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 01 2024