THE ‘TERRIBLE TWINS’ REVISITED
IT is June 1, 1949 at Euston station as the clock hands click slowly towards 10.00am. At the country end of a long train stand two strangely shaped locomotives in the form of black and silver diesels Nos. 10000 and 10001 – the joint progeny of English Electric Ltd and H G Ivatt, chief mechanical engineer of the London Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS).
The normal gestation period taken to deliver a new locomotive design was reduced in order to give birth to the first of these before Nationalisation in 1948 and so claim their LMS heritage. But British Railways, the adoptive proud parents of the resultant English Electric twins, had now decided to have a party to introduce the new traction to Scotland.
A crowd of the great and good convened to wave away the two diesels on the down ‘Royal Scot’, which was booked to cover the 401miles from London to Glasgow nonstop. It has to be said that, although this marathon was not to be underestimated, the schedule was not ambitious; the postwar time of 8hr 25min required an average speed of just 48mph.
The two EE 16SVT-engined LMS diesels could muster a combined 3200hp, or 82,800lb with an adhesion factor of 6.91. Although tractive effort is little more than a rough guidance to power, ‘Coronation’ Pacifics were quoted as having a comparable 40,000lb. However, at the drawbar, the diesels' combined horsepower was calculated to be around 1850.
The individual weight of the diesels was a hefty 127.65tons and the 16-vehicle train behind them approximately 545tons gross, meaning the whole cavalcade turned the scale at 800tons. In fact the locos were attached to the coaches only at the last minute because the extra length blocked access to some platforms.
The testing team allocated to the locomotives included the legendary Stan Fletcher, who survived to become a centenarian and honorary president of the Ivatt Diesel Re-creation Society as a guiding light for the society’s plans to build a replica of one of these trail-blazing locomotives.
Right Away Glasgow
My late colleague Keith Farr recounted their development in November 2019, but the nonstop ‘Royal Scot’ did not feature for reasons that will become apparent. Train timing doyen C J Allen was on board the special, recounting his trip in the combined September/October 1949 . However, I have been unable to discover a conventional log having been printed.
