Green Diesel Days [Hardcover]

A very good record ,not just of Locomotives,but also of lines,stations,infrastructure and units long gone. Set out Region by Region plenty of colour photographs all with details and accompanying text. It's more than just loco's but is also a social history. Buy the book, if only as an antidote to what you see today.

Excellent value as a book for enthusiasts or as a reference book for modellers of this era. High quality photos and a useful text

In committing itself to the replacement of steam by diesel and electric motive power, Britain initially lagged behind other countries in Western Europe. When the government finally created the modernization plan of 1955, the overwhelming practical advantages of diesel and electric traction were well proven elsewhere. (This didn't stop a few other countries continuing to build steam locomotives, with China doing so well into the nineties, when even they accepted that abundant supplies of cheap local coal provided insufficient compensation for the disadvantages of steam traction.) While other countries started earlier and embarked on a more gradual replacement of steam, Britain's plan proceeded at a rapid pace. As things turned out, all of Britain's steam locomotives were withdrawn from commercial service by 1968, a mere thirteen years after the 1955 plan was launched, except for those on a narrow-gauge tourist line in Wales that was eventually privatized. So the plan may appear to have been a success but a lot of mistakes were made along the way. A more gradual replacement policy would have avoided most of them.

The early diesels were a somewhat motley assortment, usually made in small batches from a variety of manufacturers. Inevitably, some worked better than others and the best designs earned repeat orders for their manufacturers. The Western Region, roughly covering the area served by the old GWR, adopted a policy based on diesel-hydraulic locomotives while other regions preferred diesel-electrics, leading to even further diversity. While there's a sense in which all diesels are boxes on wheels, each class had its own characteristics, particularly noticeable in the variety of cab designs. One curious design was the Clayton-Paxman class, in which there was one central cab instead of the normal two cabs, one at each end. Another curiosity was the Metropolitan-Vickers Co-Bo, in which the front and rear bogies had different numbers of axles. While these two classes looked very distinctive, they weren't among the most successful in operation.

Even the liveries were not standard. While the vast majority of the early diesels were green (as the book title implies), the actual shade varied somewhat. One class was even painted in a two-tone livery, with the upper band being in a lighter shade of green than the lower band. There were also a few prototypes painted in other colors (Kestrel, Lion, Falcon and the original blue Deltic are all featured) and there was the Blue Pullman, the ultimate in luxury passenger service at the time. Then there was the Western class, which was painted in maroon to match the carriages. But before you dispute the title of the book, I'll say that it fairly describes the era, as the overwhelming majority of locomotives were painted green until a new standard blue was adopted in the mid-sixties. It looked great to start with, but not once it became standard.

Many of these early diesels had a shorter working life than the steam locomotives that they replaced. However, the impact of Beeching and other changes meant that a lot of them were simply surplus to requirements, so some of them were sent for scrap without actually being replaced. While the variety of the early diesels makes for an interesting collection of photographs, lessons learned meant that standardization became the policy when replacements were ordered.

This book presents a brilliant photographic record of the early British diesel locomotives but if you're looking for technical details, this isn't the book for you. And if you look at all these diesels wishing you could see actual examples, be reassured that some of them have followed the steam locomotives they replaced on to the many heritage railways around the country. There are even some still in active commercial service, though presumably not for much longer as they are really quite old now.