Description: Showing D1023 'Western Fusilier' at Killamarsh on its final 'Western Finale' run from Exeter to York. The picture was taken at 12.45 (The train was delayed after running into cows that had strayed onto the line east of Bristol) on 12th February 1977. The sign on the front says 'Western Finale Exeter - York Farewell 52's 1961-77'. A Class 52 'Western'. This type was built from 1961, British Rail Type 4, Design speed 80mph, Engine rating 2,700hp, D1000-D1073, withdrawn 1977. All 74 locomotives of this type carried names beginning with Western, hence their nickname. These fine Co-Co 2,700hp locomotive were built between 1961 and 1964 at BR Swindon and Crewe works, the latter only as a consequence of overwork at Swindon in the West Country, very much home to the 'Western' locomotives. They captured the attention of the enthusiasts in their latter days because they represented the last vestige of Great Western-style individuality, which was alone in choosing hydraulic traction for its express locomotive fleet. Ironically, it was this individuality which eventually led to their downfall, the class lasted just 15 years because of their high maintenance costs compared to that of a diesel-electric locomotive. Though lightweight, the hydraulic system simply does not deliver the traction performance delivered by an electric transmission, as spectacularly demonstrated by the English Electric pair of test locomotives, D0226 and D0227 (not to be confused with the class 40s D226~227). Transmission equipment for most of the fleet was the German-built Voith equipment which proved troublesome, but a few utilised a British-built version by North British Locomotive Company in Glasgow. The steam-heat boilers were also problematic, but this a defect which would have been rectified by conversion to ETH in the modern era that the 'Westerns' never lived to see. All members of the class received Great Western Railway (GWR) style cast nameplates and small cabside number-plates. These powerful machines had two prime movers built-in, each rated at 1,350hp; even though they developed reliability problems because of shoddy maintenance, as one engineman put it, 'if one packed up, at least you could get home on the other!'. The practice of using more than one engine was fairly uncommon among early British Rail diesels, as it generally gave rise to a longer-than-usual locomotive which posed additional problems for bogie design. Initially vacuum-braked, most of the class survived long enough in BR service to have been dual-braked as part of overhauls in the early 1970s. Because of their mainline nature, the 'Western' set unprecendented mileages for such young locomotives on the BR system. By the time they were withdrawn, most have at least 1,000,000 miles on the clock, and the most prolific of them all, the appropriately named D1005 Western Venturer, ran up a grand total of 1,392,000 miles. Even though they were only designed for 80mph, in the days before the Health & Safety nonsense was introduced, many of them recorded 100mph runs on a regular basis. D1010 covered a Paddington-Penzance run in 1974 in 5 hours and 25 minutes with 15 coaches (560 tonnes gross); the same journey still takes more than 4 hours even with present-day 125mph HSTs sets and only 8 coaches per set. The first Western to be built, D1000 'Western Enterprise' entered service on 20 December 1961, finished in the 'desert sand' livery with black backed number and name plates. The promotional pictures showed a T-shaped yellow-warning apron at the front of the locomotive, but this was never applied to production models. Evidently the novel livery was unpopular, as the later production models were outshopped in maroon with small yellow warning panels. Originally it had been thought that the class would be named after West country locations as a mock up of D1000 had been produced bearing the name 'Cheddar Gorge'. A total of 30 locomotives were built at Swindon works with the remainder being turned out at Crewe. The last Western built was D1029 'Western Legionnaire', which from 1964-67 ran with the nameplate mis-spelt as 'Western Legionaire'. The Westerns were to carry a variety of liveries during their service on British Rail, including maroon, green and chromatic blue. D1015 'Western Champion' was finished in the golden ochre livery in 1963 but otherwise the majority of the class received maroon livery before all being finished in Rail Blue with yellow front ends. In 1967 a policy decision had been taken to gradually oust all non-standard locomotive types and this signalled the end of the diesel-hydraulics. The final farewell railtour was on 26 February 1977 when locomotives D1013 'Western Ranger' and D1023 'Western Fusilier' powered the Western Tribute from Paddington to Plymouth via Swansea and return. There were plans to build more Westerns at one stage which would have made this a larger class of 99 locomotives but the plans were scrapped after discovering that diesel hydraulic transmission, although lighter and gives a better power to weight ratio, it is nonetheless much more expensive to maintain than their electric counterparts. (Information courtesy of the Western Locomotive Association)