Metrovicks

[43006]

The Met-Vicks (or 'Cheeseboxes' as they were known by the trainspotting fraternity at Seascale, in West Cumbria) finished their days on the Carnforth - Whitehaven - Carlisle line. There were 20 of them - D5700 - D5719, mostly allocated to Barrow( - in - Furness) - 12C shedcode. As someone quite correctly pointed out, they weren't very reliable. I used to travel on a chartered school train between Seascale and Egremont. In the morning it was an Ivatt 4MT (43006 and 43106 were regulars), but at night , it was a Black 5. However, on a Friday, the loco home was always an odd-ball - usually NOT a local loco. On only 1 occasion did they put a Met-Vick on our evening train - and that broke down at Sellafield!
One Met-Vick you never saw was D5702, as it was under permanent repair at Barrow Shed.
Before arriving in Cumbria, I beleive that they worked in and around the Sheffield area, though I could be wrong

43006

[stembok]

In their early days as well as the Condor freight working London to Glasgow the Metrovick Co-Bos worked in multiple on St Pancras -Manchester trains. I saw two pairs in multiple arriving one pair arriving one leaving St Pancras one afternoon in September,1960. In the end their lack of reliability and replacement by Class 45 'Peaks' saw them sent to West Cumberland to see out their short lives, victims of said unreliability and also the rationalisation of surplus/unreliable/non-standard diesel classes towards the end of the 1960s.

[paul miller]

Does anyone agree that they epitomised everything that was wrong with B.R's diesel policy, in that they where just ordered "willy nilly" and never really tried and tested. The whole policy was littered with locos that where no good for the job. If they had been I am sure that steam would have gone even earlier.
Paul.

[stembok]

The Modernisation Plan of 1955 can scarcely be dignified with the word 'Plan'. As someone said it was more like a few rough jottings on the back of an envelope which failed to take into acount the changes occurring on and off the railways as regards transport provision. The government of the day released funds and it then became a free for all for resources rather than a logical, coherent policy; the waste was enormous. Originally, the plan envisaged a pilot scheme to identify the best diesel designs for quantity production, but worsening economic and operating conditions led to a rush to dieselise and of course locomotive manufacturers saw this opportunity as a life line. It seemed that anyone could get an order from B R at the time. It is no coincidence that generally speaking the most successful family of designs came from English Electric with long experience in the field. The experience of North British Loco frantically trying to reorientate their business was quite the opposite. One solution would have been to turn to America for locos, but at the time and for long after this was politically and economically unacceptable. The result over 40 diesel designs introduced ,when probably five would have sufficed, as was the case in other countries.