British 4000hp+ Locos

[Meld]

Was chatting the other day and a suggestion came to light:

Why don't the British locomotive manufacturers come up with something to take on the world.

The greenteam have gone to GE for the next generation of loco. Because there is nothing available here.

Is it time Brush brought a new Bird of Prey into the world?????

Now there are a few 60's kicking around that have thrown their collective legs outta bed. How about Brush taking the bodies bogies etcc and creating a few modern testbed locos for the Operators to evaluate/test then get back into the world market.

Comments

 

[Turbostar]

I agree with you entirely Meld, but it'll be the same old story... lack of funding/finance, resources, workforce, government intervening, etc. etc... If it could be done, it'll be great, but I doubt very much. :neutral:

Mart

 

[Callufrax]

Nice idea, but a limited market. GE and EMD can do that, in North America, simply due to the size of North American railroad companies. When North American Class I railroads order locomotives, they order by the hundreds, even thousands, each year. Then add the regionals and shortlines.

 

[Bonemaster]

Cost simply to get the economies of scale that the American manufacturers have you need a constant flow of orders, restrictive guage for deliveries does not help either.

Then just compare how long it took for 250 class 66s to arrive compared with the class 60s, and bye and large the 66s worked straight out of the box, the same can not be said for many British classes of locos

 

[kestrel]

If BR had been kept intact then quite possibly we would have seen a development of the 60 prob with a Ruston 16rk215 in it instead of gm's progressively replacing the 47/56/58's thus getting some sort of standardisation in a simialar vein as the 66

 

[Moog_1984]

If BR had been kept intact then quite possibly we would have seen a development of the 60 prob with a Ruston 16rk215 in it instead of gm's progressively replacing the 47/56/58's thus getting some sort of standardisation in a simialar vein as the 66

The 215mm bore and other size reductions were developed later, so the unit would have been the RK 270 v16 or the over stressed v12....which the big 8 Mirlees was chosen to replace and simplify maintainance! Ironically enough.

The only way european manufacturers can compete is on wieght and top speed where either v16 from the ruston's stable in VP or RK215 could deliver over 4000hp and 120 mph.

Back to the future, eh kestrel? YouTube: the brits come up with a 4000hp 125mph loco

Mind you EMD managed to do the irish sheds to under 115 tonnes.

 

[90019]

This thread is over 2 years old!

 

[Fincra5]

Thats one massive bump. Perhaps it should just be closed.