most unattractive looking BR diesels

[D6130]

Of course the class 42/43 Warships were just a scaled-down version of the DB class V200/220 diesel-hydraulic locos, to which they were mechanically virtually identical. IMHO, our Warships looked considerably better than their much more bulbous German cousins.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Of course the class 42/43 Warships were just a scaled-down version of the DB class V200/220 diesel-hydraulic locos, to which they were mechanically virtually identical. IMHO, our Warships looked considerably better than their much more bulbous German cousins.

Veering OT I always have a soft spot for the DSB (Danish state railways) MX and MY, as their nose end treatment was more easy on my eye than on the Swindon/NBL Warships.

 

[satisnek]

I'm surprised that opinions of the 'Westerns' are so polarised. For me it's a classic Misha Black design with its best attribute being the way its profile matches the Mark 1 coach (best seen with both loco and coaches in maroon).

For 'unattractive' I present the Class 37. Because it's the coolest-sounding thing that has ever moved seems to blind people to the fact that, especially today, it looks like a carbuncle from the pre-technology age. The same applies to the Class 40, of course, and Class 44/5/6 is an updated, slightly neater design.

Once we got to Class 47 (and 50 and 56), BR was seriously into 'design'. Class 58 was a backward step, in common with the EMU designs of that time.

 

[Senex]

Have there been any diesel locomotive designs at all that could be called attractive, except for the Hymeks and (just possibly) the 47s? (Performance is a different matter, of course. I don't think anyone will dispute what the Deltics brought to the ECML, and I'd contend that the Peaks were much better on the MML than the 47s.)

 

[xotGD]

Class 13. Especially the 'slave' bit.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Have there been any diesel locomotive designs at all that could be called attractive

I agree with Satisnek who, on post #33, said: "...the 'Westerns' .. a classic Misha Black design with its best attribute being the way its profile matches the Mark 1 coach."

 

[delt1c]

Surprised the 16's havent been mentioned cab between 2 full height bonnets < ventilation grills everywhere and bogies that looked as though they came from a meccano set. Class 15's were marginally nicer but not a lot

 

[Sun Chariot]

Surprised the 16's havent been mentioned

They and the 15s are amongst my lengthy list on post #9

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Have there been any diesel locomotive designs at all that could be called attractive, except for the Hymeks and (just possibly) the 47s? (Performance is a different matter, of course. I don't think anyone will dispute what the Deltics brought to the ECML, and I'd contend that the Peaks were much better on the MML than the 47s.)

I quite like the Hymeks, but a friend (who isn't quite as much of a rail-nerd as me) described them as "a 47 with dwarfism" which I now can't unsee!
Discussion of aesthetics will always have a degree of subjectivity, but I don't think there has ever been a British loco that comes close in hideousness to the vast majority of North American diesels.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Jan 2025 ==

Class 13. Especially the 'slave' bit.

Always thought it was odd that they weren't paired "nose to nose" with both cabs retained, so they'd be like a miniature pair of 20s. Would have offered much greater visibility in both directions.

 

[Harpo]

Surprised the 16's havent been mentioned cab between 2 full height bonnets < ventilation grills everywhere and bogies that looked as though they came from a meccano set. Class 15's were marginally nicer but not a lot

Class 15 actually got plaudits for its design but then look at its parent, 10800, and maybe see why?

Meanwhile Richard Hardy’s views about ‘the plumbers nightmare’, as he described the matching internal awfulness of class 16, complete the picture!

 

[delt1c]

They and the 15s are amongst my lengthy list on post #9

Did see thew mention but wouldnt even call it functional, poor vision in both directions , but main class i was mentioning was the 16

 

[Tetragon213]

Have there been any diesel locomotive designs at all that could be called attractive, except for the Hymeks and (just possibly) the 47s? (Performance is a different matter, of course. I don't think anyone will dispute what the Deltics brought to the ECML, and I'd contend that the Peaks were much better on the MML than the 47s.)

Class 43 HST always looked beautiful to me. I also quite like the 50s.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Personally opinion, but I sort of got used too the appearance of the D600s but to me, the D6100 and D6300 locos always looked as if they were intended to have noses as well but just left them off. The flat area below the windscreens just looked un-finished. The D800s avoided this with a very simple slope. It was, I think, the case that the NBL cab was pre-fabricated aluminium alloy and the exactly same for all their diesels, with or without noses.
Another jarring, i.m.o., feature of the D6300s (but, oddly, not the D6100s) was the spoked wheels. Looked like NBL had not been following the kit assembly instructions and used the wheels from a wagon kit by mistake - as was well as forgetting to glue on the nose .
Difficult to say whether the D6100s (in original form) looked good in green as, by the time I encountered them, the colour was usually hidden by fuel and lube.oil and coolant leaks - from the roof (exhaust and rad. overflow) and seeping through the louvres. I particularly remember D6104 which also had soot and scorch/burnt off paint above some of the vent louvres and was overall as sooty black as a Black Five.
But I did like the NBL 2s, although it might not seem so from the foregoing. In their dotage they were pretty much restricted to Cowlairs bankers and one seemed to be a bit banana shaped when viewed from the front (???D6152???) possibly as a result - probably not designed for compressive forces???

 

[Sun Chariot]

Did see thew mention but wouldnt even call it functional, poor vision in both directions , but main class i was mentioning was the 16

I wonder how their visibility compared to - for example - the Ivatt 4MT and Riddles 4MT: similar sized cab windows and similar distance to the front (steam: boiler, diesel: long hood).

The NBL and BTH (and 10800) followed US GM EMD design thinking of the early 1950s. The GP7, GP9, SD7 and SD9 also had long hood and small cab windows.

 

[40875704]

Anything in the orange freightliner livery. And class 18 but they are not BR.

 

[Strathclyder]

Veering OT I always have a soft spot for the DSB (Danish state railways) MX and MY, as their nose end treatment was more easy on my eye than on the Swindon/NBL Warships.

Very reminiscent of the GM streamliners/bulldogs, which is a no-brainer given they were license built with EMD/GM internals.

 

[Pigeon]

The front end of pilot scheme designs was constrained by the need for gangway doors, train describer discs and lamp brackets, then the later addition of headcode panels. This made it inevitable that, apart from locomotives with nose ends, their front end appearance was going to have a squashed look.

This is true, but while it explains what one might call the quantity, it doesn't let them off for the quality being so conspicuously inferior to other examples with the same constraint.

The Bullied diesels were pretty ugly too with a flat front but no centre windows.

Only ever seen them in photos, but what gets me about those is the way the curvature of the front corners makes that flat front look as if it's positively concave. I had to see some drawings before I could realise it wasn't.

Of course, with Bulleid, "make it really freaking ugly" was a mandatory unwritten part of the standard design requirements.

Of course the class 42/43 Warships were just a scaled-down version of the DB class V200/220 diesel-hydraulic locos, to which they were mechanically virtually identical. IMHO, our Warships looked considerably better than their much more bulbous German cousins.

I agree. The German ones had an oversized bulbous front with an excessively small, dissonantly styled, angular chop-top shed glued on the top of it, looking like a part from some other machine of lesser size stuck on as a temporary measure just to get it going. Ours were neatly rounded all over and the bits below and above the windows were in much better proportion.

Have there been any diesel locomotive designs at all that could be called attractive, except for the Hymeks and (just possibly) the 47s? (Performance is a different matter, of course. I don't think anyone will dispute what the Deltics brought to the ECML, and I'd contend that the Peaks were much better on the MML than the 47s.)

The Peaks could look pretty fine in their cleaner variants - strong and purposeful nose ends, bodysides that went on for ever, and just so bloody big. Just the thing to appear against the sky on top of a lowish embankment with a low sun glancing off the side of it.

 

[Ashley Hill]

I’ve always thought that the non-gangwayed 25s looked bland and monotonous.

 

[BeijingDave]

Westerns really just look like a favela shed on bogies.

 

[D6130]

I’ve always thought that the non-gangwayed 25s looked bland and monotonous.

I agree!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Jan 2025 ==

Another jarring, i.m.o., feature of the D6300s (but, oddly, not the D6100s) was the spoked wheels. Looked like NBL had not been following the kit assembly instructions and used the wheels from a wagon kit by mistake - as was well as forgetting to glue on the nose .

The D6100s also had spoked wheels....but they were not so obvious because of the design of their Commonwealth bogies. The D6300s had a different design of bogie to accommodate their hydraulic transmission.

 

[Strathclyder]

I’ve always thought that the non-gangwayed 25s looked bland and monotonous.

Martin Loader's gallery comes up good again when looking for BR period 25 pics to compare front-ends:

(plated over gangway)

25042 Oxford (Walton Well Road) 23 August 1985

(flat fronted)

25205 Bayston Hill 3 July 1985

Not sure which 25 front end I prefer quite honestly.

 

[Greetlander]

Class 58 - looks like a school group project gone wrong. Also not a fan of the cab end of a class 20, although the front end makes me smile so I give it a pass.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Of course the class 42/43 Warships were just a scaled-down version of the DB class V200/220 diesel-hydraulic locos, to which they were mechanically virtually identical.

I think I read recently that the DB versions were designed so that the engines and transmissions were interchangeable, so a Paxman engine could be changed out for an MAN, or a Voith transmission for a Mekydro, but that this had proved impossible within the more restrictive BR loading gauge, so there had to be two distinct classes - PaxmanMaybach/Mekydro (Class 42 - one had a Paxman engine) and MAN/Voith (North British). This also meant than when the MAN engines proved to be less than perfect, they couldn't be changed for Paxmans.

 

[GatwickDepress]

Class 58 - looks like a school group project gone wrong. Also not a fan of the cab end of a class 20, although the front end makes me smile so I give it a pass.

Remove the bogies and underframe and the 58s could quite easily pass for a garbage scow in a 1970s BBC sci-fi programme.

 

[DelW]

Discussion of aesthetics will always have a degree of subjectivity, but I don't think there has ever been a British loco that comes close in hideousness to the vast majority of North American diesels.

Modern ones yes, but surely not the likes of these:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ae/c7/26/aec7267f2a3f3435d53c1b8da1f51b73.jpg

(Link to an image - not mine - of EMD E-unit diesels in Santa Fe Warbonnet livery)

If only some of the early modernisation plan locos could have looked like that!

 

[Sun Chariot]

Modern ones yes, but surely not the likes of these:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ae/c7/26/aec7267f2a3f3435d53c1b8da1f51b73.jpg

(Link to an image - not mine - of EMD E-unit diesels in Santa Fe Warbonnet livery)

If only some of the early modernisation plan locos could have looked like that!

Conversely, the Pennsylvania Railroad seemed to own the "ugly stick", judging by its fleet.
Here are just a few: DD1, P5a, GG1, FF2, E44a.

 

[Tester]

Conversely, the Pennsylvania Railroad seemed to own the "ugly stick", judging by its fleet.
Here are just a few: DD1, P5a, GG1, FF2, E44a.

I've been hauled by a GG-1, and yes - ugly in real life!

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I used to dislike the class 76/77 (originally EM1/EM2) electric locos on the Woodhead route - very boxy and square, with small porthole windows plus the unsightly scissors pantographs.
But long after their demise I found myself on an SJ intercity service Stockholm-Oslo, hauled by what looked very much like the Woodhead locos, also in black but with rounded corners that looked very smart, and was probably much more driver friendly.
The SJ designation is Rc6.
Pics (cl76 by Phil Singwell from the Wiki article):

SJ Rc - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

British Rail Class 76 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

(Sorry, just noticed the thread was about ugly diesels ).

 

[EyeKay]

I’ve always thought that the non-gangwayed 25s looked bland and monotonous.

I actually liked these. Nice clean uncluttered lines.

 

[Ashley Hill]

I always thought that a pair of 76s with their pantographs near full height looked the business! Here’s a photo of a pair at Huddersfield Junction from eastbank.org