British Rail Class 56
The BR Class 56 is a certificate from the UK series of diesel-electric locomotives for use on goods Zugen, which was developed by Brush Electrical Machines and manufactured 1976-1984.
History
Development
The traction change from steam to diesel traction traction was completed at British Rail with the full commissioning of the Class 47 in 1968. From the Class 47 500 copies were made , so for the time being there was no need for further locomotives. As in 1973, the oil crisis was brewing, British Rail registered a greatly increased volume of transport in coal traffic, which could not be dealt with by the locomotives of Class 47, which had a heavy coal trains rather low power of 1,925 kW and partly did not allow multiple. British Rail began a short time a self-construction into consideration, but in order to keep the time until it is used in normal operation as short as possible, it was decided for the job to Brush Electrical Machines in Loughborough. Due to the lack of capacity of the Brush factory in Loughborough was there only the production of individual parts of the locomotives. The final assembly took place at Electro Putere in Romania. The first of the delivered aircraft, however, were provided with factory defects and published in daily service as not reliable. British Rail therefore decided not to continue this production method; the final assembly took place at Doncaster Works BR- subsidiary British Rail Engineering from the 31 locomotive. The last 20 of 135 locomotives of Class 56 were prepared at British Rail at Crewe. An option for an additional locomotives was not honored, instead, was the production of simple constructed but cheaper class 58
Operation
After eliminating the initial error the locomotives of Class 56 ran comparatively reliable. In the initial period of use was mainly from heavy steel and coal trains in Wales and northern England, while applications of the class 47, which was instead used before passenger trains, and the class 20, which had only 750 kW of power, were taken. When in 1989 the class 60 appeared, from the 100 copies were made , the machines of class 56 changed in the lighter freight service. In 1998, the launch of the Class 66 by General Motors. This locomotive broke in numerous transport companies in which the British Rail had risen in the wake of privatization, the less efficient class 56 from; within a short period of time more than half of the stock is turned off. Although some machines could be reactivated briefly by sale, the number of active locomotives of Class 56 fell by 2003 to 25, who drove mainly for English, Welsh & Scottish Railway. Due to restructuring within this railway company ended the use of the latest machines of class 56 in March 2004.
The regular use of the machines ended after a locomotive relatively short period of 20 to 25 years. Accordingly, were not a few locomotives, instead of being broken down, parked on sidings only so reactivations were possible. This was achieved by, among others, for use as a work train locomotives in the realization of the LGV Est européenne in France. A total of 30 locomotives were transferred through the Euro tunnel for this action, who returned to the UK after the completion of the high speed line again. Some minor rail companies reactivated individual machines of class 56, including Fastline and Colas Rail. A single-digit number of locomotives is still in use today.
Three machines were preserved in museums and are used in special trains.
Technology
Frame and locomotive body of the BR Class 56 together form the key elements of the locomotive. This leads to a favorable weight distribution, but therefore a repair after minor accidents took a relatively long time to complete.
The diesel generator Class 56 was manufactured by English Electric. Generators of similar type have been installed before the start of World War II in diesel locomotives for shunting, for use in locomotives was a 1947 increase in power to 1,190 kW. By the year 1973 succeeded English Electric to increase the performance of the 16-cylinder unit to 2,625 kW, but to increase the life span, British Rail slowed the achievable operating performance to 2,425 kW.