Diesel Hydraulic Locomotives

[Tetragon213]

The staff worked 12 hour days or nights on a permanent basis, and as you say at certain times of the year as demand dictated could even be sent to work on farms!

Actually standard Socialist Europe approach. In the Soviet Union, at the same era, or even more recently, schoolchildren would be "volunteered" to get the harvest in.

Iirc, in the USSR it was not unknown for office workers and scientists in universities to get drafted into doing menial labour. I have no doubt that a factory of fitters could be called in to gather crops at the drop of a hat, and this sort of thing can't be good for maintaining high production standards.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Hand built by candle light, is one description.

lol- not heard that before.

Class 56 from Romania were introduced for “Plan for Coal” iirc?

 

[Acathater]

lol- not heard that before.

Class 56 from Romania were introduced for “Plan for Coal” iirc?

Direct result of the Arab-Israeli wars blocking the canal. We needed to generate more electricity from coal, so more capacity was needed to haul the coal.

 

[Harpo]

this sort of thing can't be good for maintaining high production standards.

I don’t think the Romanians ever got accused of high production standards?

 

[Taunton]

Direct result of the Arab-Israeli wars blocking the canal. We needed to generate more electricity from coal, so more capacity was needed to haul the coal.

Nowadays with shortages we just put the prices up. If it's VATable, like petrol/diesel, the government just says "whoopee", because 20% of all the increase goes to them.

Regarding Class 56 assembly, these points are just those which appeared in a Modern Railways article a couple of years after their arrival, late 1970s, obviously written by someone closely involved - all the accounts of cable conduit being plain gas pipe, and the night shift working by candlelight due to power supply shortages, were recounted there.

 

[Bodiam]

Go far enough back into history, and it happened here too.

In large parts of rural Scotland, the autumn half term holiday is still called tattie week, from the days when children helped harvest potatoes grown for seed.

Further south, in the days when London had a lot of manufacturing industry, factory workers would go on the train to Kent for hop picking.

These days, the Fens harvests that require lots of manual labour rely heavily on workers coming from Eastern Europe.

Schoolboys from Erith were sent to "harvest camps" in Kent during WW2 and no doubt that happened in many places

 

[The exile]

Surely the Heavy Coal Traffic there had all come down through Bishops Stortford and Cheshunt, which was electrified ...

Not at the time of the Southbury Loop electrification (1960).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Jun 2026 ==

Iirc, in the USSR it was not unknown for office workers and scientists in universities to get drafted into doing menial labour. I have no doubt that a factory of fitters could be called in to gather crops at the drop of a hat, and this sort of thing can't be good for maintaining high production standards.

Or Tito’s deployment of all available hands to build the Belgrade - Bar line in the 50s,60s and early 70s.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Surely the Heavy Coal Traffic there had all come down through Bishops Stortford and Cheshunt, which was electrified ...

But it used the (unlectrified) Lea Valley line, not the electrified Seven Sisters line, as it was going to Stratford.

I assume the LV line was not electrified because most, if not all, of the passenger services on that route went well beyond the original limit of electrification at Bishops Stortford (ie to cambridge, Ely and Kings Lynn). Electric trains to Hertford and Stortford were all routed via Seven Sisters, and local Lea Valley services were quite limited.

 

[Harlequinuk]

A question for all. Why wasn`t the 52 kept for the stone trains, once they realised the 56s were rubbish?

 

[Rescars]

Probably a separate topic, but what was the reasoning for having the 56s built in Eastern Europe in the first place?

 

[hexagon789]

Probably a separate topic, but what was the reasoning for having the 56s built in Eastern Europe in the first place?

I understood it was subcontracted to Electroputere, because Brush had no capacity to meet the full order at the time BR wanted in their own Loughborough Works, the order being split between Loughborough and Doncaster.

By arranging to have the Loughborough portion built overseas, Brush was able to get the order and fulfil it, though ultimately with the build quality issues they may as well have just waited until there was free capacity at Loughborough.

 

[Johnnie2Sheds]

A question for all. Why wasn`t the 52 kept for the stone trains, once they realised the 56s were rubbish?

Is it because when the fools at Marylebone had made their decision, going back on it would have made them look bigger fools?

 

[Harpo]

A question for all. Why wasn`t the 52 kept for the stone trains, once they realised the 56s were rubbish?

I don’t recollect the 56s being that bad on the Westbury stone?

I can’t remember the exact figures but suspect the type 4 load was in the order of 1100 tons and a single 56 was something like 1600? Moving stone as economically as possible was hugely important as it’s a low value commodity.

The customer must have been pretty unimpressed by BR’s slow incremental change as the FY class 59 revolution came soon after, shifting 5000 tons with a single loco.

 

[Beebman]

I understood it was subcontracted to Electroputere, because Brush had no capacity to meet the full order at the time BR wanted in their own Loughborough Works, the order being split between Loughborough and Doncaster.

By arranging to have the Loughborough portion built overseas, Brush was able to get the order and fulfil it, though ultimately with the build quality issues they may as well have just waited until there was free capacity at Loughborough.

Sometime after the fall of Ceausescu I remember watching a BBC documentary about him in which it was mentioned that in the 1970s he was something of a 'thorn in the side' of the Soviet Union and sought to build trade relations with the West. Indeed in 1975 he signed a joint trade agreement with Harold Wilson and I'd guess that this had a bearing on the decision to subcontract to Electroputere.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Sometime after the fall of Ceausescu I remember watching a BBC documentary about him in which it was mentioned that in the 1970s he was something of a 'thorn in the side' of the Soviet Union and sought to build trade relations with the West. Indeed in 1975 he signed a joint trade agreement with Harold Wilson and I'd guess that this had a bearing on the decision to subcontract to Electroputere.

There was also a deal to build BAC 1-11 aircraft under licence in Romania (for their own use) - the Queen had the unpleasant task of hosting the Ceausescus for a state visit to smooth the way.

 

[43096]

I don’t recollect the 56s being that bad on the Westbury stone?

It was the unreliability of the 56s that lead to Foster Yeoman ordering the Class 59s.

 

[Acathater]

Sometime after the fall of Ceausescu I remember watching a BBC documentary about him in which it was mentioned that in the 1970s he was something of a 'thorn in the side' of the Soviet Union and sought to build trade relations with the West. Indeed in 1975 he signed a joint trade agreement with Harold Wilson and I'd guess that this had a bearing on the decision to subcontract to Electropute

I suspect allowing the absolutely awful Renault 12 derived Dacia branded Romanian built cars to be sold in the UK was also a part of that trade agreement. They were absolutely terribly constructed with multiple faults which required Abbey Hill (the importers) to run them all through a rebuild production line in Yeovil before they could be sold. They were even worse than the contemporary Yugoslavian Zastava / Yugo Fiat based machines.
Typical faults were disconnected / missing brakes, loose windows, warped body panels, missing wheelnuts, disconnected wiring, no engine oil...... It used to amaze us how they ever got them onto the transporters and ships to get them from Romania to the UK. I can't remember if they arrived via Avonmouth or Tilbury but either way the transhipment must have been a nightmare.

 

[70014IronDuke]

Is it because when the fools at Marylebone had made their decision, going back on it would have made them look bigger fools?

Whether fools or not, I don't believe the people at BRB made this decision. It was foisted upon them by got.

Sometime after the fall of Ceausescu I remember watching a BBC documentary about him in which it was mentioned that in the 1970s he was something of a 'thorn in the side' of the Soviet Union and sought to build trade relations with the West. Indeed in 1975 he signed a joint trade agreement with Harold Wilson and I'd guess that this had a bearing on the decision to subcontract to Electroputere.

In 1968, Ceaușescu refused to join his Soviet allies in the invasion of Czechoslovakia. This was greeted with great enthusiasm in Romania - the man was genuinely popular for a short period after this. But somehow the idea spread and became believed, not only by the tabloid UK press, but also by the Foreign Office. The theory was that Romania could be some sort of semi-liberal 'bad seed' in the Soviet bloc that would help bring it all down.

There is nothing wrong with having a theory, but it becomes a problem when leaders keep believing in it despite the reality on the ground.

Romania became a disaster, and was nowhere near 'semi-liberal'. As one person from Romania I know well puts it: Who needs the Soviets when you have Ceaușescu in charge?

In 1974, when the news broke that half the 56s were to be built in Romania, you didn't need to have a MSc in Sovietology to know it was going to be a disaster. The people at LMR CMEE in Derby were flabbergasted. I'm sure they were in Marylebone Rd too. It was a political decision from government.

The sad thing is and was, it was a bigger disaster than even we thought it would be at the time.

Quite when the Foreign Office woke up and managed to persuade the govt of the nonsense that this theory was, I don't know. I suspect it took the election of Thatcher in 79 to end it all.

 

[Clarence Yard]

A question for all. Why wasn`t the 52 kept for the stone trains, once they realised the 56s were rubbish?

The Westerns went way before the 56’s hit the WR.

 

[Harpo]

It was the unreliability of the 56s that lead to Foster Yeoman ordering the Class 59s.

I’m sure you’re right. I just don’t recall them being a huge problem once out on the road on the WR any more than other BR locos, although perhaps BR had too low a bar in accepting locos sitting down at the rate they did?

The only time I was aware of anyone in BR actually saying ‘enough’ on failures was the fiasco of Bescot 31s attempting to get to Paignton and back on summer Saturdays.

 

[norbitonflyer]

I’m sure you’re right. I just don’t recall them being a huge problem once out on the road on the WR any more than other BR locos, a

I think the problem was getting them on the road in the first place. Wikipedia quotes, in the article on Foster Yeoman "with availability of the Class 56 locomotives from May 1984 as low as 30%, and only 60% of trains running on time"

I recall FY were also not impressed that the stone trains had to be double headed by 56s to get them out of the quarry. (Continuous tractive effort for a Class 56 is 240kN, compared to 291kN for a class 59, despite the engine horsepower being almost the same)

 

[The exile]

I suspect allowing the absolutely awful Renault 12 derived Dacia branded Romanian built cars to be sold in the UK was also a part of that trade agreement. They were absolutely terribly constructed with multiple faults which required Abbey Hill (the importers) to run them all through a rebuild production line in Yeovil before they could be sold. They were even worse than the contemporary Yugoslavian Zastava / Yugo Fiat based machines.
Typical faults were disconnected / missing brakes, loose windows, warped body panels, missing wheelnuts, disconnected wiring, no engine oil...... It used to amaze us how they ever got them onto the transporters and ships to get them from Romania to the UK. I can't remember if they arrived via Avonmouth or Tilbury but either way the transhipment must have been a nightmare.

Any quality control would have been down to the possibility that your child / sibling/ friend might be behind the wheel or coming the other way. If it was being exported to the UK there was no danger of that. Otherwise, the only thing that mattered was the fulfilment of your quota. Didn’t seem to occur to anyone to add the words “fit for purpose” to the quota specification.

 

[Prime586]

Quite when the Foreign Office woke up and managed to persuade the govt of the nonsense that this theory was, I don't know. I suspect it took the election of Thatcher in 79 to end it all.

The last of the Brush Romanian subcontracted units was delivered in September 1977. The first unit built by BREL Doncaster had entered service 4 months earlier. Given the QC issues experienced with the Romanian units on delivery I suspect the decision not to place any follow-on orders with Brush/Electroputere was made long before 1979.

Mrs. Thatcher visited Romania in September 1971 as Secretary of State for Science and Education in the Heath government, and returned in September 1975 as Leader of the Opposition (followed 2 weeks later by PM Harold Wilson). In April 1981 she hosted the Romanian Prime Minister's visit to London. Successive UK governments from the mid-60s into the 1980s pursued trade and economic relations with Ceaușescu's Romania, so I doubt there was any Government influence to cease the outsourcing of Class 56 construction (it was probably the opposite).

The decision to 'nudge' Brush into outsourcing from Romania in 1974 presumably came as a result of the June 1973 official visit by Edward Heath's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Julian Amery to Bucharest, which is where the offer of a state visit to the UK was first made.

There was also a deal to build BAC 1-11 aircraft under licence in Romania (for their own use) - the Queen had the unpleasant ask of hosting the Ceausescus for a state visit to smooth the way.

Brush wasn't the first UK company to outsource production to Romania due to lack of capacity - Britten-Norman Aircraft had started outsourcing final assembly of the BN-2 Islander (suppliedi n kit form) to IRMA in 1968 as it's own factory no the Isle Of Wight did not have the capacity to meet customer demand. In 1972, after B-N had been taken over by Fairey, a deal was signed for outsourcing full production of the Islander and it's Rolls Royce turboprop engine by IRMA. By the late 70s Fairey had outsourced all production of the Islander to IRMA (so at least one of the Romanian outsourcing deals was a success).

The Islander deal was arranged as a 'quid pro quo' for Romania ordering BAC 1-11 airliners from the UK in 1968. That sale eventually led to the ill-fated ROMBAC deal in June 1978 (signed during Ceaușescu's state visit) to transfer the production line for the 1-11 from Hurn to Romania (which ultimately was a failure, with Romania defaulting on it's payments to BAC and less than 10 aircraft being completed, mostly from Hurn-supplied subassemblies).

I suspect allowing the absolutely awful Renault 12 derived Dacia branded Romanian built cars to be sold in the UK was also a part of that trade agreement. They were absolutely terribly constructed with multiple faults which required Abbey Hill (the importers) to run them all through a rebuild production line in Yeovil before they could be sold. They were even worse than the contemporary Yugoslavian Zastava / Yugo Fiat based machines.
Typical faults were disconnected / missing brakes, loose windows, warped body panels, missing wheelnuts, disconnected wiring, no engine oil...... It used to amaze us how they ever got them onto the transporters and ships to get them from Romania to the UK. I can't remember if they arrived via Avonmouth or Tilbury but either way the transhipment must have been a nightmare.

The importation of the Dacia Denem (their licence-produced version of the Renault 12, dating from 1969) for sale in the UK began in 1983 by Andover-based IVI (Commercial) Ltd (trading as the Dacia Car Company Ltd.) with a single shipload of 750 cars. It was expensive compared to other Eastern Bloc imports and the build quality was very poor. No further batches were imported and it took until 1984 for dealers to shift the remaining stock.

The Dacia name returned in 1984 via a new company, Dacia Concessionaires Ltd of Westbury (part of the Abbey Hill vehicle import group). who started importing the Romanian ARO 10 small off-roader as the Dacia Duster (Auto Romania had no links to Dacia, other than buying engines and gearboxes off them), and also the pickup version of the Denem. Despite similar build quality problems, the Duster was more successful and importation continued until 1993.

 

[coppercapped]

Any quality control would have been down to the possibility that your child / sibling/ friend might be behind the wheel or coming the other way. If it was being exported to the UK there was no danger of that. Otherwise, the only thing that mattered was the fulfilment of your quota. Didn’t seem to occur to anyone to add the words “fit for purpose” to the quota specification.

Ah, the wonders of central planning. Back in the days of the Soviet Union, so the story goes, the agricultural equipment factories were instructed to build 8[1] million tonnes of tractors annually in the Gosplan documents.

So the easiest way to do this and meet the targets was to build very, very heavy tractors...with the result that they became bogged down in the wheat fields of central Russia and the Ukraine when it rained.

Which story has more than a semblance of truth and is why I am no fan of centralisation.

[1] the number may vary.

 

[stuu]

The (probably apocryphal) version told to me in A' level economics was about a nail factory being told to produce x tonnes of nails a month, so they produced enormous nails. The following year they were told to produce x number of nails, so they made very tiny nails

 

[edwin_m]

Whereas captitalism is a bit more subtle. Anyone heard another possibly apocryphal the story about making the hole in the end of the toothpaste tube bigger so people would use more of it?

 

[westernpunk]

A question for all. Why wasn`t the 52 kept for the stone trains, once they realised the 56s were rubbish?

It nearly happened after withdrawal 1033 1056 1058 1070 were set aside under tarpaulins as foster yeoman were interested in having them, unfortunately it didnt happen although that was before the 56s were used

 

[70014IronDuke]

The last of the Brush Romanian subcontracted units was delivered in September 1977. The first unit built by BREL Doncaster had entered service 4 months earlier. Given the QC issues experienced with the Romanian units on delivery I suspect the decision not to place any follow-on orders with Brush/Electroputere was made long before 1979.

I should hope so too! I would hope nobody ever thought of follow up orders after the initial shambles!

Mrs. Thatcher visited Romania in September 1971 as Secretary of State for Science and Education in the Heath government, and returned in September 1975 as Leader of the Opposition (followed 2 weeks later by PM Harold Wilson). In April 1981 she hosted the Romanian Prime Minister's visit to London.

Good grief! So the myth of some possibilities of a 'liberal Romania' useful to the UK's overall E European policy persisted beyond 1979!
Who was in charge of the FCO's East European Desk during those times, one has to wonder! A good friend of Kim Philby perhaps? One really has to wonder.

Successive UK governments from the mid-60s into the 1980s pursued trade and economic relations with Ceaușescu's Romania, so I doubt there was any Government influence to cease the outsourcing of Class 56 construction (it was probably the opposite)

That would indeed appear the case from your summary of goings on at the highest levels of UK govt.

The decision to 'nudge' Brush into outsourcing from Romania in 1974 presumably came as a result of the June 1973 official visit by Edward Heath's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Julian Amery to Bucharest, which is where the offer of a state visit to the UK was first made.

The blunders of UK ministers from Oxbridge origins never ceases to amaze. (Well, I suppose they were both Oxbridge.)

It's not as if the UK had any special, historical-cultural links with Romania - a country which then and now likes to big up its Latin origins (and why not, to a point?) and thereby snuggle up to the French.

What a shame the script writers of Yes, Prime Minister never looked at this nonsense in their day.

 

[Taunton]

It's not as if the UK had any special, historical-cultural links with Romania - a country which then and now likes to big up its Latin origins (and why not, to a point?) and thereby snuggle up to the French.

It wasn't just the UK, others were doing so. I recall in the mid-1980s encountering a delay on the M2 motorway from Dover to London. This was caused by two Romanian heavy trucks running in tandem at maximum fuel economy speed of around 30mph on the road. They were branded ROMAN but were clearly based on the German MAN truck of the era, and looking this up I found there was a substantial joint venture between MAN and the Romanians, facilitated by the West German government, at a factory in Brasov. The extreme fuel economy was driven by the drivers being issued hard western cash to buy diesel, based on normal consumption, but they economised further and benefited from the difference, delays to other road users be blowed. As well as being universal in Romania, they were substantially exported, to Africa etc.

Mentioned above is the British BAC jetliner production being transferred to Romania (in truth, after demand for the UK production had fallen right off), this had a whole series of issues, compared to which the Class 56 problems at the same time were minor scale. A major fuselage assembly from the UK factory was being trucked over to the Romanian assembly plant when the lorry (presumably a ROMAN) crashed off the road and down a hillside. The aircraft structure was just straightened out afterwards.

 

[OVS Flatbottom]

Apropos of Romania and hydraulics, there was a Romanian-built diesel-hydraulic exported to the US during the period of détente with Ceaușescu in the 1970s. It ran as a demonstrator before being bought by the Washington Terminal. There's some information at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Terminal_Company:

One of the rare locomotives used by the WATC in the past was a FAUR road switcher made in the Socialist Republic of Romania in 1974. This example was made with the specific purpose of testing it on the American railroad network, at a time when diplomatic relations between the Eastern Bloc country and the United States were at an all-time high. The unit, originally numbered LDH125-107 and nicknamed "Quarterhorse" was tested across the country, but was turned down due to the lack of interest in diesel-hydraulic traction. The locomotive was then purchased by the WATC and operated into the late 1980s, until it was scrapped.[7]

The excellent Derby Sulzers site also has a couple of paragraphs at https://derbysulzers.com/usa.html:

In 1974 one Faur LDH 125 locomotive was shipped to the United States of America as a demonstrator model. This was intended to be the forerunner for an order for a further twenty five similar locomotives to be exported to the U.S.A. However this never materialised which is probably not surprising considering the competition that this locomotive was up against in the land of EMD & GE. Even if the 6LDA28B engine had found favour with those testing it, the locomotive's hydraulic transmission certainly would be a leap of faith for those willing to operate the locomotive.

The locomotive carried the lettering 'Quarter Horse' on the striped band along the long hood.

After its initial testing in the Mid-West by the North American Car Company, Illinois, it was acquired by Washington Terminal, being renumbered 78, for use in switching duties in Washington DC. It is reported that due to the light weight of the locomotive, at least by American standards, it was not the greatest success.

It was later acquired by a freight car repair company that operated from the former Lehigh Valley shops at Sayre, PA. It would be scrapped here during the late 1980's.

Not particularly successful (one story I heard was that the "Quarter Horse" branding gave rise to the joke that it only had 0.25 hp), but moderately interesting as one of the select number of North American diesel-hydraulics, not to mention the political context.