Despite a serious amount of soul searching, my internal thought process had never resulted in feeling anything more than a notional affection for any of the 500 plus Class 47s. I have shown more than indifference; for example, travelling behind the steam heat members of the class at the turn of the 1980s when they had regular work on the Highland Main Line, I never experienced a performance that was in excess of the expected power outputs which would encourage some inspiration to make further investigation with relish.
Instead, the class gave me, at best, rail horsepowers (RHPs) approaching what would be expected from a locomotive with its engine rated at 2580 BHP, but many of the locomotives gave figures much lower. What could explain this wide variation with Class 47s was their designed-in flexibility; they could continue with a cylinder isolated if defective, and the locos with traction motors wired in parallel could have a traction motor isolated without losing field diversion, unlike their English Electric counterparts where a traction motor problem would mean taking the loco out of service.
An isolated cylinder could be clearly heard, the sound of the power unit with a rattling, unpowered piston increasing in frequency as the engine revs rose. I understand this sound is the origin of why ‘Western ‘bashers used to call them Duffs. An isolated traction motor would not be as obvious to a train timer, other than as a hypothetical reason for inferior RHPs. In the present era, I understand that the West Coast Railway Company examples are often working with either of these defects when there is no alternative. I was always puzzled by the drivers I worked with at the start of my career, who described this as being ‘three-legged’, even though they still had five operative motors!
Drivers of depots throughout the system in BR days regarded Class 47s as a good loco, capable of pulling any type of train, and with a cab environment an improvement on the first-generation locos. It was also, for many years, the most powerful diesel locomotive many of these drivers worked on, and, to reflect this, a popular nickname was ‘four and a half’. At Longsight one evening, I witnessed a discussion between drivers agreeing they were the ‘Black Five’ of diesels; everyone liked them. So, well thought of with train crews who would not be concerned with the finer points of type 4 locomotive performance like train timers of the period. There was some strong opinion held in the various partisan groups of enthusiasts, who often had their personal preference for a particular type. My experience timing the different ‘big’ type 4 classes was that there might be advantages for each type in certain areas, but they didn't make much practical difference overall.
Unlike most depots where the Class 47 was part of the driver training from the 1970s, (coded MP12) at Longsight, where the author worked, the core traction was the Class 86. When I moved to Manchester Victoria for promotion to driver in the mid-1980s, I was trained on the class, with a gentleman of an instructor from Northwich, who took us down the North Wales Coast Line, enabling us to clock up many hours of driving practice. On his annual leave, our temporary instructor was the
