North Wales Coast Railway: Class 47/8

NORTH WALES COAST RAILWAY: THE TRAINS

Rheilffordd arfordir Gogledd Cymru Trenau

CLASS 47/8

Last update July 2004

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At the end of March 2004, Arriva Trains Wales ceased locomotive haulage along the North Wales Coast, but for financial/political reasons, at the start of the Summer 2004 timetable in late May, Class 47s re-appeared working the Virgin Trains London services over the non-electrified Crewe - Holyhead section with electric locomotives taking over between Crewe and London. Apparently the Strategic Rail Authority ordered Virgin West Coast to dispose of the HSTs previously used. Autumn 2004 saw the Voyagers and Pendolinos take over, but we have retained this page for archive interest.

The locomotives were a small fleet of eight Class 47/8 locos (some argue that there is no such classification as 47/8 and these should be referred to as 47/4s fitted with additional fuel tanks) allocated to Willesden depot in London, known as the ATLO pool. Initially these were augmented by the final two surviving EWS engines, 47 750 and 47 787 Windsor Castle, but EWS have taken these out of traffic.

The Class 47 is a 2650 HP diesel-electric locomotive: a large number were built by Brush at Loughborough and British Railways at Crewe from 1963 to 1967. The power unit is a Sulzer 12LDA28C of Swiss design, built under licence by Vickers-Armstrong of Barrow-in-Furness, whilst the generator and motors are Brush products. The maximum permitted speed of a Class 47 is 95 mph. The 47/8 variant appeared in 1989 for use on InterCity cross country services: the principal difference from the original design is that larger fuel tanks are fitted to give a longer range; this was possible because water tanks for the steam-heating boiler were originally provided, and steam heat has been replaced by electric train supply. There were once 54 Class 47/8 locos, all of which passed to Virgin on privatisation, but all except these eight have either been withdrawn from service or transferred to other operators including Freightliner, Riviera Trains, West Coast Railways and Cotwold Rail. It is notable that five completely different liveries can be seen in the Virgin fleet of eight: three of these are deliberate homages by Virgin to coloure schemes previously carried, and two of the locos still carry First Great Western's green (with logos removed) from their days working out of London Paddington.

The Virgin Class 47 fleet in pictures, as of July 2004

Livery codes: G Great Western Green, V Virgin red. 'Heritage' liveries: I InterCity Dark/light grey with red stripe, H BR original two-tone green , B BR corporate blue.