The Metropolitan-Vickers Type 2 Co-Bo Diesel-Electric Locomotives from design to destruction
The distinctive outline of the 20 Class 28 ‘MetroVick’ or ‘Co Bo’ diesel electrics might easily have elevated them into the ‘iconic’ category, but for the fact that history records them as one of the classic failures of the BR Modernisation Plan.
Indeed, criticism of, its last steam locomotive. It was in November 1958 that the British Transport commission chairman endorsed a memo listing locomotive types which should not be subjected to future orders, and the Co-Bos were among them. The Co-Bo wheel arrangement, not only unique in BR practice but rare in other countries, came in for particular criticism, along with the wrap-round cab windows, the ‘clumsy-looking’ headcode discs and the location of the driver’s cabside doors.
