The Class 50 was built in the late 1960s, and initially hired by British Rail from English Electric, to power the remaining non-electrified portions of the West Coast Main Line from Crewe to Scotland [1] on passenger trains and freight. The Class 50, a development of the English Electric DP2 prototype, often worked these WCML trains in pairs (though they could also work in multiples of three) to provide sufficient performance to match the timings of the electric locomotives that they shared their trains with. The locomotives were bought outright by BR in 1973 but by the mid-1970s were being displaced from the WCML due to the completion of electrification and the arrival of the Class 87. The Class 50s were sent to Western Region to work in the south and south west of England.
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| GB Railfreight liveried 50 049 at Kidderminster Town |
| Information | |
|---|---|
| Number built: | 50 |
| Built: | 1967-68 |
| Builder: | English Electric, Vulcan Foundry |
| Motor: | English Electric 16CSVT diesel |
| Power: | 2, 700 hp (2, 013 kW) |
| Wheel arrangement: | Co-Co |
At first the reliability of the Class 50 was poor with failures often due to problems with the then-novel electronic systems fitted. Crews joked that they were called the Class 50 as there was only a 50:50 chance that they would make it to their destinations! [2] The Class 50 received a full refurbishment in the late 1970s/early 1980s to improve reliability by removing little used and redundant equipment such as the slow speed control.
Much of the locomotives' time was spent on west of England express passenger trains out of London Paddington and London Waterloo and other passenger services. This made them vulnerable as multiple units became the favoured mode of people mover in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the supply of work dried up. There were attempts to utilise the class for slower freights and one locomotive was modified with lower geared bogies though the experiment was not a success.
The Class 50 was withdrawn from BR service by 1994, though no less than eighteen have been preserved (thirty six percent of the fleet) and several are mainline certified. The Class 50s were the first class of diesel locomotive to only carry BR blue livery (and later variations) though one preserved locomotive has been given a "what might have been" BR green livery. One British Rail exception came in the 1980s when one Class 50 was renamed Sir Edward Elgar and repainted in Brunswick Green to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the GWR.
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| Also in GBRf livery, 50 007 at Bewdley |
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| Network South East livery is carried by 50 026 at Kidderminster Town |
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| 50 049 when it carried BR large logo livery |
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| 50 007 approaches Highley |
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| 50 034 at Kidderminster Town |
[1] Brian Haresnape, Production Diesel-Electrics Types 4 and 5 (Ian Allan, 1984) p. 67
[2] Michael Welch, Diesels on the Western (Capital Transport, 2013) p. 107