British Railways’ Class 24 diesel was, as intended, a very able all-round locomotive, but design flaws and changing traffic patterns meant a relatively short life with the last of them being withdrawn more than 40 years ago, as EVAN GREEN-HUGHES relates.
Above: Carrying BR green with small yellow warning panels, Derby built Sulzer Type 2 D5025 climbs past Camden with an outbound service from London Euston in August 1965. Dave Cobbe Collection/Railphotoprints.uk.
When British Railways took the inevitable decision that it should switch from steam traction to diesels in the 1950s it had under its control a large number of major workshops, which, while geared up to the production of steam locomotives, were also eminently suitable for the production of modern traction. Amongst these was Derby, which already had some limited experience of building main line diesels, and so it was natural that this works should be selected to build a batch of prototype medium-power mixed-traffic locomotives.
The requirement for this type of engine arose because at that time the railway was still largely in its pre-war state, with much of the traffic consisting of light goods trains, parcels traffic and stopping passenger services, many of which serve…
