The Jet Age

BR’s Early Gas Turbines

Although diesel power was starting to prove itself as a viable alternative to steam traction before the outbreak of the Second World War, no single unit locomotive of the time could match the power of large main line locomotives.

Where a GWR ‘King’ 4-6-0 in ‘good nick’ could deliver around 2,500hp to the rails, and the LMS ‘Princess Coronations’ were capable of more than 3,000hp, the LMS/ LMR and Southern Region diesel prototypes (Nos. 10000/01 and 10201/202) could only manage 1,600hp, reducing to around 1,300hp at the rails after transmission losses. Multiple working equipment meant that one crew could drive two locomotives on heavier trains but this was an expensive solution and the search was soon under way for more power.

Rather than developing its own diesels, the Great Western Railway (GWR) looked to gas turbine power, ordering a prototype locomotive from Swiss company Brown Boveri in 1946.

Delays in construction and foreign currency shortages