North British Locomotive Company

The North British Locomotive Company of Scotland ( NBL or North British ) was founded in 1903 by the merger of three Glasgow companies, Sharp, Stewart & Co., Neilson & Company and Dübs and Company and was the largest locomotive manufacturer in Europe. The main factories were located in Springburn. 1918 produced the factory the first prototype of the Anglo-American Mark VIII tank war for the allied armies, which did not go on the basis of the armistice in series production. The two other railway factories in Springburn were St. Rollox Railway Works and Cowlairs Railway Works.

Steam locomotives

NBL built steam locomotives for countries with vast tracts of land such as South Africa, Malaysia and New Zealand. The British colony of New South Wales purchased numerous NBL locomotives, just as the Australian state of Victoria in 1951. NBL sold his steam locomotives very successful.

Diesel locomotives

While NBL had a lot of success in designing and building steam locomotives, they did not make the leap into the diesel locomotive production. In the 1950s, she signed an agreement with the German company MAN to construct diesel engines under license. These engines arrived at the end of the 1950s in the diesel locomotives for British Railways (BR ) are used. None of these locomotives was particularly successful because of structural faults they were far less reliable than diesel locomotives from German production.

Electric locomotives

NBL was in the construction of electric locomotives for the West Coast Main Line ( WCML ) involved Elektrisierungsprojekt the early 1960s: The company General Electric won a contract to supply ten locomotives and instructed the NBL for the mechanical design and construction of the locomotives, which for the first time from 1960-1961 came into use. Like the diesel locomotives had the electric locomotives by NBL insufficient reliability and therefore partly a long time were not used.

End of operation

NBL provided many diesel and electric locomotives with loss of British Railways, these make up the hope with great repeat business, but which never came. By the way had to pay numerous warranty claims of the railway companies for their unreliable diesel and electric locomotives, North British Locomotive Company. For these reasons, NBL had to declare bankruptcy on April 19, 1962.