HS4000 Kestrel
 

HS4000 'Kestrel'
The world's most powerful Sulzer engined diesel locomotive.

Despite living close to Shirebrook sheds, I never managed to see Kestrel in the flesh during her coal hauling days of the early 70s.
However, I'd be very interested if there are any RF members who recall Kestrel's Mansfield - Whitemore haulage feats, or the test run on the Commonwealth bogies quoted below. I think this an important bit of our UK rail engineering heritage and capturing any members comments here on the forum will be good for future research and nostalgia.

On August 7th 1968 HS4000 worked a test run between Mansfield concentration sidings at Clipstone and Lincoln with a train of 52 loaded merry-go-round wagons of 2,028 tons gross. The speed limit for the wagons was 45mph. The test included the locomotive's ability to restart trains on rising gradients, in particular the 1.5 miles on 1 in 120 at High Marnham. Here, from a standing start 20mph was reached in 6.5 minutes, maintaining this speed until easier gradients were reached.