In the rush to modernise the railways in the 1950s many diesel designs were ordered straight off the drawing board. EVAN GREEN-HUGHES looks at the chequered history of one of the least successful, the Metropolitan Vickers Co-Bo.
LOOKING BACK at some of the decisions taken during the early years of the modernisation of British Railways many are critical of the waste that occurred. However it is easy to overlook the fact that 60 years ago there was little knowledge of diesel operation in this country. Engineers unsurprisingly hedged their bets and advised that broad specifications should be drawn up against which manufacturers would be invited to produce designs which could then be evaluated against one another in service.
One of the debates concerned which type of power unit should be fitted inside the new diesel locomotives. The London Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS) and Southern Railway (SR) prototype main line locomotives already working in this country had used slow-revving four-stroke diesels but in mainland Europe there had been considerable success with smalle…
