To
traffic: 16/01/64
| 16/01/64 | 64B Haymarket |
| 28/09/68 | 66A Polmadie |
Works
Visits : No Information
Available
Liveries: Green Half Yellow Warning Panel
Green Full Yellow Ends.
Withdrawn
:
06/10/71
Mileage
:
Not known
Built by
Clayton Locomotives of Tutbury D8568 was first constructed in the Autumn of
1963. This was carried out at Tutbury on the shop floor to ensure that when
built up the loco all fitted together. Once this task was completed to
satisfaction it was broken up into its component parts and sent by road to the
Internal Combustion factory near Derby station. Here it was re-assembled again
and mated to its frames and bogies. The Clayton locomotives were fitted with two
450hp engines built by Paxman, originally intended to have been fitted under the
floors of D M U vehicles. As a result the locos had flat engines (where the
pistons go side to side rather than up and down) and these were the only main
line diesel locomotives to operate using this type of engine.
D8568 is the
sole survivor of a class of locomotives once 117 strong. The loco spent all of
its working life in Scotland where it was delivered on the 16th
January 1964, to Haymarket, near Edinburgh, moving to Polmadie, near Glasgow
during September 1968. It remained operating at this depot until it was
withdrawn from service on the 6th October 1971.
Having
spent all its working life based in Scotland little is known by the group
regarding the history or life of D8568. The class members based in Glasgow spent
most of their lives working towards Ayr and Stranraer and via Dumfries to
Carlisle. Edinburgh based locomotives worked traffic to and from Dundee in the
North and to Carlisle via Hawick on the Waverley route. A number of early
examples became out based at Carnforth during the late 1960's for banking
duties, eliminating steam. The Beyer Peacock built examples (D8588-D8616) spent
their early lives in the North-East of England around Newcastle before
eventually moving North to Scotland.
Designated
by British Railways as the standard type '1' (class 17) for the railway system
the Claytons were to have replaced the EE type '1' (later class 20), their
centrally placed cab offered good all round visibility for drivers and was far
superior to that of the single ended EE type '1'. However this was not to be and
withdrawals of the Clayton began as early as 1968, when some members were just
only four years old!
October 1971 saw the majority of the class withdrawn and storage sites around Central Scotland were littered with silent locomotives. An idea to convert some of the class to battery-electric locomotives for use on engineering work in tunnel sections of line did not materialise and this led to locomotives going to scrap merchants in Glasgow, Norwich and even Hull!