My Grandad who was a former blacksmith/boilermaker and later a diesel mechanical engineer at Derby works once said the Class 56 was the only Diesel he actually liked , he did say they were noisey in the cab and difficult to work on as their huge V16 Ruston power unit filled the engine room , but he did say they had the ability to haul anything they could start and the power unit itself was a near perfect design and originally based on an EE 16 cylinder design, and although the first 30 were terribly constructed the problems incounted with them had nothing to do with the power unit itself, he said the brakes on the 58 were terrible as well as the mentioned wheel slip , if he was around today he would be happy to see them still, as he once told me * Nothing beats that huge V16 Ruston sound thundering down the line * I have to agree with him on that one .
2 56s used to pull the iron ore trains between Port Talbot & Llanwern in South Wales - 6 and a bit thousand horsepower pulling 3060t up done of the steepest gradients in the UK - you could hear it a mile away, the ground used to shake under your feet too
@@Alexander-km8es I think it's the ore trains , which don't run anymore due to the steelworks closure. The biggest ones now are the trains from the Mendip quarries of Morehead and Whatley, which can go as heavy as 5100t.
56s are quite quiet in the cab in my opinion, especially when compared to the GM products such as 59/66/67. The class 60s and 70s however are superb in terms of noise. 58s were fairly quiet, but overall they were garbage locos!
Thanks for the information. I have a model of 58050 in Coal Sector Livery. It seems there were a lot of locomotives like the Class 58 'Bones' that were just that little bit too late. Cheers!
I can rember the class 58 in the netherlands with acts (amsterdam container terminal service) they where a unique site amongst our various electric locomotives such as the class 1600/1800 as well as the older class 1200 that also ran with acts. I loved the engine sound these locomotives made when they charged past a station with a heavy container train with a length of about 700 meters
wtf zeg jij nu weer??? het is niet “amsterdam container terminal services” maar “afzet container transport systeem”, acts heeft nooit niets te maken gehad met amsterdam, het hoofdkantoor lag in denbosch en ze reden van de waalhaven naar veendam…
I worked with the 58s at Garston in Liverpool. 1990 They used to bring Coal into Garston docks, they were crewed by Coalville Drivers, but they never signed passed Garston Depot, so while they were having their pnb, a Garston Driver took it down to the docks and brought their empty's up for them to take back home. They were great Loco's. We had Two 56's bringing 45 HAA's up from Liverpool docks, they took over the Duty's from 4 class 20's and then of course it was the class 60 that reigned supreme using only one Loco. Happy days.
I helped to prep 58022 for transport by road, that is going to become a remake of the diesel loco 10000, from Crewe IEMD were it was stored. The guys purchasing it were very enthusiastic about the purchase.
I drove them and they had so many silly issues. Poor sanding gear, a long rigid bogies leading to loss of adhesion on the slightest curves, belt driven compressors, yes! And no air con in the cabs. They would have benefited greatly from the retro fitting of SEPEX. But they did contribute to the design of the class 59, they had the same cab interior. And so, therefore, grandfathered the 66.
@@97SEMTEX SEParately EXcited traction motors. Basically each motor is separately supplied with electrical current and if one axle starts to slip, power is reduced at that axle and moved to another that isn’t, maintain good adhesion (grip) Class 59/66 use a similar but different system called super creep which basically forces the wheel to ‘slip’ and shifting power between all motors to get serious adhesive power. You can give a 66 full power from a stand and it will skip about and start to slip, the loco will push out sand to the lead axles and off she will go! It’s quite something on a heavy train in poor conditions. SEPEX would have given the 58’s much better and improved adhesion.
I belive the creator of this videos referenced the cabs I'm his 59/66 video. Believe it was transferred across to aid with driver familiarity and speed up training
According to some older hands that are still on the railway (colleagues of mine), the Midland men didn’t have as many problems with the 58’s and wheelslip. That’s on the hillier Midland routes too! Apparently, the Acton men just didn’t know how to drive them properly. The National Railway museum was supposed to be taking in 58050, as it was the last ever Doncaster built locomotive. However, no effort was made to retrieve it and it was hurriedly scrapped in France. It’s a real waste, especially since GBRf has proven that 56’s can be overhauled with different power units. The modular design should’ve been perfect for reengineering, but DB are in the business of destroying everything and running everything to destruction for their bonuses.
Several class 58s survive stored in Spain.... 58050 is one of them, its not been scrapped. Also 1 class 58 survives in France, stored in a siding in a freight yard with a wheel fault, so it cant be moved and is why it never made it to Alizay depot so avoided the scrap man..... for now.
Great video. Used to see them briefly used in conjunction with the class 56 & 60 carrying the west waste yellow binliner train passing our home on the chiltern line from south ruislip during the mid 90’s.
I miss the sight of a class 58 on the main line I always liked having class 58.s on Railtours/Nuneaton Drags/Passenger Trains I wish we could go back to those days
The power unit wasn’t the same as the class 56. They had the 16 cylinder engine, a modified version that was in the class 50, the 58’s had the 12 cylinder engine that was tested in 47 901.
I did wonder where they all went. Coming back from Birmingham the other month I was surprised to see 016 and 023 at Leicester in quite shabby condition. Hopefully they'll be cleaned up.
I remember 6 of the buggers being dragged unceremoniously through Bradford on Avon c.1990, in various liveries and states of disrepair, their fates unknown but even though I left the railway in 1982 it still felt so wrong in every way, like Riddles standards of a previous generation...
I always think of the class 58 as a 'what if' loco, if they had been geared for 60mph maximum speed and with sepex fitted then they might have performed better and lasted longer on the main line.
With the weird concourse walkway, from the saddlers Centre to the station. A strange shopping centre Railway mashup, well before New Street-Grand Central or the revamped Paddington.
One of the reasons for the slow introduction of the Class 56 was the amount of remedial work that was needed onto Romanian built locomotives. Everything from wiring conduits to bogie springs were substandard.
There was an east german diesel loco class the Br 119 (219 after reunification) that was called "Ceaucescus Rache" or "Ceaucescus Revenge" for that very reason. They wrre also horribly unreliable, and all parts of ppor quality. The Bukarest locomotive works were only kept alive be ause the RGW forbade anyone else in the Warsaw pact from building medium diesel locos. The east Germans had a perfectly good loco in the Br118, but couldn't build it due to RGW/soviet interference.
As usual a great video to watch, I've been following your channel since the early days. Still love the subjects you portray. ACTS is not pronounced as one word "ACTS", but by it's individual letters A-C-T-S.
I've been waiting for this one for a while, i used to see them when i was younger and then suddenly they vanished and i always wanted to know what became of them
A point of note is that class 58 used a Ruston Paxman V12 prim mover the class 56, using the Ruston Paxman V16 .both had tractive effort of 61800 lbs but the 58s could never put down the performance of the class 56 on wet rail ,the Ruston V16 having better wheel slip recovery and as you point out the 58s suffering more from this which didn't help!
58050 had the Sepex mod. as an experiment. Separately-excited traction motors were much more controllable and this system went on to be used in the Class 60s which were much less prone to slipping.
I always wondered about the 58s, thank you Ruairidh. I don't think I ever saw one, living in different areas. I guess that Mendip Quarries rejected them due to the low speed wheelslip (which the 56 also had), although I wonder if they ever tested them, or if they'd just lost faith in anything BREL did, at that point. The 58s seemed to have an unusually long development period - 6 years a opposed to 2-3 for other BREL locos.
We'll always have 'little brother' .. the Ffesterbahn's Vale of Ffestiniog and if you want an impressive paperweight, the Isle of Man Railway's "Cabbage".
The class 58 engine is different. The 56 has a Ruston Paxman 16RK3CT V-16 of 3250hp. The 58 does have a Ruston Paxman 12RK3ACT V-12 which produces 3300hp. So the class 58 engine is a further evolution of the EE CSVT engine which produces the same power from less cylinders. The Dutch 58s looked a bit odd when paired with the Dutch class 1200 electrics which towered above them, but they wer good performers. ACTS is not pronounced as in he acts, but is an abbreviation in which the letters are pronounced individually as A-C-T-S. That company is defunct for around 10 years now.
The miners' strike didn't cause the demise of the UK coal industry, it was the other way round. The strike was in response to the threat of a huge pit closure program which is exactly what took place in the years shortly after the end of the strike. So in other words, while one part of UK government (British Rail) was busily revamping its locomotive fleet to meet the demands of the coal industry another part of the same government was already planning to close that industry down.
The current DfT operated railway is indeed "part of the government", but BR was a nationalised industry in which the government (DoT) had no direct influence. Maybe there were conversations in the corridors, but the only operative lever the government then had was wielded by the Treasury, which set BR's budget. Additionally, as Rory says, the 58's were conceived in the 1970's, when nobody was thinking of a Thatcher government and its de-industrialisation of Britain policies. None of those CEGB coal fired power stations was life-expired in 1982.
The 58 was definitely a wasted opportunity. A much better loco than it's fate deserved, while others linger on till this day. Also worthy of preservation note, is that there were spare 58 cabs built (in case of crash damage) and one of those has been cosmetically restored and is on display somewhere, also (i forget where - no doubt someone will post up).
Large logo livery looked great on this loco. I liked the black diamonds tag on the rail freight livery too but I’m a wee bit biased in favour of the coal trains I used to like seeing on the move.
They were never shopped or painted in Large Logo livery (BR blue with large double arrow)? Do you mean the original two-tone grey railfreight livery which had the sector logo (e.g. coal) painted large on the body side? I thought they looked great in that livery and the Mainline blue livery.
@@brianfearn4246 I’ve just checked the Class 58 Wiki page (which I know isn’t that truthful) but it looks like 050 is currently in storage in Albacete, France
What progress we’ve made made in my lifetime. We no longer make locos and no longer exploit a highly efficient energy supply that is efficiently transported via rail. Now the mad ongoing deindustrialisation makes us reliant on foreign states, some that despise our way of living.
With no significant mining or manufacturing industry there is no incentive to maintain a healthy and educated working class. We are "levelling down" to bring the country into line with the third world.
I agree with your point on the demise of British manufacturing and industrial power, in my opinion the ability to produce our own materials is important for national security. It is wrong, however, to lament the departure of coal fired power stations.
The union insanity of the 1980s regretfully did themselves in. When the unemployment cheques stopped during strikes ended, good move. Management apathy, in parallel with Union bullying did not help. Why BR was broken into so many pieces is silly. But …
@@geoffreylee5199 I once watched a documentary where BR CEO John Welsby said the BRB were not per se against privatisation, but nobody from the government asked them how the railway was actually run.
I have vague memories of seeing these around on the SWML when I was a kid. I always found them much more interesting than the 56s. Shame they didn't last, but I guess these things are often a game of survival of the fittest (or the most appropriate/useful anyhow).
Excellent video, 58s are only a 12cyl engine whereas a 56 is 16cyl You mentioned wheelslip that was most certainly an issue with them but even worse was 56042 the 56 with similar bogies to a 58 makes me wonder why they went ahead with that bogie . Cheers Russ
I was born in 1968 (age 56) and thought I'd seen every class of diesel loco to run for BR. However, living in Scotland, it was the one of the few classes that eluded me, others being the class 17, 71 and 74. I think I'm right in saying that 58 never ventured into Scotland but perhaps I'm wrong?
Could you do a video on the České Dráhy class 371 and 372 please? I them at Plzeň train station and I want to know if they're as hefty as they look. Wikipedia doesn't really have enough information on them. :/
Introduced after an extended test and development period, does that include the usual objections from the Trade Unions or the anti rail Government. I saw a lot on the MML probably tooling up for Asfordby mine but that was another story.
I wasn’t aware that _any_ of the 58s have actually operated in heritage service. The lack of vacuum brakes - plus the specialist electronics - makes them very limited in their application.
Truly shameful some class 58s had more revenue earning years abroad than in the UK considering it was the British Public that paid for them. Another infamous BR case of mismanagement
Just about anyone awake this side of 1938. Seriously ... What have we got? The blistering speed of the Class 43s was dependent on track sufficiently decent to get into 3 figures and the Pendelino is APT MkII flogged back to us by Italy. HS1 is a branch of LGV Nord and HS2 is looking increasingly like a few dozen isolated miles not reaching the terminals the scheme has been cut back to. In the time it's taken us to fail to reopen the handful of miles either Portishead or Tavistock, or agree to reopen Lewes - Uckfield, the Chinese have opened many thousands of kilometers of brand new high speed lies and introduced stock to run on them. Those rose tinted spectacles may be comfortable, but they evidently can't see past the end of the wearer's nose!
The costs of transferring the 56 build from doncaster to crewe, for doncaster to build a relatively small class, 'with export potential' (export sales a nice round nil) should have been avoided. The railways, and the country's finances would have been better served by taking the 56 build up to 200 on the existing donny production line.
@andrewreynolds4949 very true. The builds of North British diesel and electric locos, allowing a 'fireman' on the footplate of diesels, building 100 extra class 20s to replace another failed class, when there was no need for further type ones, so they spent most of their lives coupled as pairs, the plan (fortunately rescinded) to close and demolish St Pancras . Plenty of stupid decisions where after the event 20/20 makes things clear.
@@brianwillson9567 Really I would go further than that, and say they shouldn't have phased out steam and introduced diesels as quickly as they did. The BR Standards and other relatively new steam locomotives could easily have kept everything running while they ran actual design trials and a reasonable, phased development plan. I don't think there was anything else that hurt the railways in the UK quite as much as throwing virtually untested and (as it turned out) incredibly unreliable diesel locomotives into service while cutting up their brand new would-be backup power. Without that incredible waste of resources, more would have been available to invest in the rest of the system and therefore would have left a better performing system today.
@andrewreynolds4949 100% agree. Removal of steam much too rushed. The modernisation scheme locos never given enough time to assess the gems from the lemons, and to build second generation locos from proper assessment of the initial builds. Depots and workshops geared to 'dirty' steam now expected to maintain diesels under those conditions, boilersmiths made redundant but not enough staff trained and competent to work on diesels and the "'elecrtic machinery' inside the diesels, bowing to union pressure to keep a 'fireman' on the footplate of diesels and electric locos, scrapping steam engines well short of economic life. The list of errors goes on. Instead of 1958 to 1968, the removal of steam should have been 1958 to 1978.
@@brianwillson9567 Looking at how dieselization happened in the US, the early prototypes were rather poor. It wasn't really until the 2nd or 3rd major iterations that they really improved enough to gain any major headway into replacing steam; even then, modern steam held out for a very long time in some places. BR tried to do in 10 years or less what the US did over 40 with very little testing beforehand; no wonder it turned out poorly.
Something deeply ironic about British diesel freight locomotives being bought by other European countries to help construct their high speed raid networks....
Surely most of the same quantity of coal was being burnt in power stations for most of the 80s, so much if the same quantity needed to be moved, just from ports instead of mines?
I drove 45 of them. They were crap in comparison to the 56s. Wheelslip/overheating/poor sanding capability. Fairly quiet admittedly in the cab. Oh and the cab heat worked off the water temp just like central heating.......piss poor!
Potentially a interesting video on the Class 58's however my only honest criticism of the video is the AI chatbot generated voice if it was a proper persons voice narrating the video it would have more appeal 😮
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My Grandad who was a former blacksmith/boilermaker and later a diesel mechanical engineer at Derby works once said the Class 56 was the only Diesel he actually liked , he did say they were noisey in the cab and difficult to work on as their huge V16 Ruston power unit filled the engine room , but he did say they had the ability to haul anything they could start and the power unit itself was a near perfect design and originally based on an EE 16 cylinder design, and although the first 30 were terribly constructed the problems incounted with them had nothing to do with the power unit itself, he said the brakes on the 58 were terrible as well as the mentioned wheel slip , if he was around today he would be happy to see them still, as he once told me * Nothing beats that huge V16 Ruston sound thundering down the line * I have to agree with him on that one .
2 56s used to pull the iron ore trains between Port Talbot & Llanwern in South Wales - 6 and a bit thousand horsepower pulling 3060t up done of the steepest gradients in the UK - you could hear it a mile away, the ground used to shake under your feet too
@@RichardMitchell-ut1uc what trains are heavier container goods or an oar train same length Soo there is no cheating
@@Alexander-km8es I think it's the ore trains , which don't run anymore due to the steelworks closure. The biggest ones now are the trains from the Mendip quarries of Morehead and Whatley, which can go as heavy as 5100t.
56s are quite quiet in the cab in my opinion, especially when compared to the GM products such as 59/66/67. The class 60s and 70s however are superb in terms of noise.
58s were fairly quiet, but overall they were garbage locos!
Thanks for the information. I have a model of 58050 in Coal Sector Livery. It seems there were a lot of locomotives like the Class 58 'Bones' that were just that little bit too late. Cheers!
The good news is though, 58023 is now back in service after about 20 years! It just worked its first railtour in preservation this week!
I can rember the class 58 in the netherlands with acts (amsterdam container terminal service) they where a unique site amongst our various electric locomotives such as the class 1600/1800 as well as the older class 1200 that also ran with acts. I loved the engine sound these locomotives made when they charged past a station with a heavy container train with a length of about 700 meters
wtf zeg jij nu weer??? het is niet “amsterdam container terminal services” maar “afzet container transport systeem”, acts heeft nooit niets te maken gehad met amsterdam, het hoofdkantoor lag in denbosch en ze reden van de waalhaven naar veendam…
Houtrakpolder, I was one them ACTS train drivers.
I worked with the 58s at Garston in Liverpool. 1990 They used to bring Coal into Garston docks, they were crewed by Coalville Drivers, but they never signed passed Garston Depot, so while they were having their pnb, a Garston Driver took it down to the docks and brought their empty's up for them to take back home. They were great Loco's. We had Two 56's bringing 45 HAA's up from Liverpool docks, they took over the Duty's from 4 class 20's and then of course it was the class 60 that reigned supreme using only one Loco. Happy days.
what was best 56 or 58 . as fan 56 any day for me
Excellent video. As an ex Toton driver, I managed to drive them all. Memories now long gone.
I helped to prep 58022 for transport by road, that is going to become a remake of the diesel loco 10000, from Crewe IEMD were it was stored.
The guys purchasing it were very enthusiastic about the purchase.
Damn I miss the Class 58s on the Mainline and those that were Scrapped in France is tragic
I drove them and they had so many silly issues. Poor sanding gear, a long rigid bogies leading to loss of adhesion on the slightest curves, belt driven compressors, yes! And no air con in the cabs. They would have benefited greatly from the retro fitting of SEPEX. But they did contribute to the design of the class 59, they had the same cab interior. And so, therefore, grandfathered the 66.
For give me; What is SEPEX? and what does it do!
@@97SEMTEX SEParately EXcited traction motors. Basically each motor is separately supplied with electrical current and if one axle starts to slip, power is reduced at that axle and moved to another that isn’t, maintain good adhesion (grip) Class 59/66 use a similar but different system called super creep which basically forces the wheel to ‘slip’ and shifting power between all motors to get serious adhesive power. You can give a 66 full power from a stand and it will skip about and start to slip, the loco will push out sand to the lead axles and off she will go! It’s quite something on a heavy train in poor conditions. SEPEX would have given the 58’s much better and improved adhesion.
I belive the creator of this videos referenced the cabs I'm his 59/66 video. Believe it was transferred across to aid with driver familiarity and speed up training
@@gavin18787 The BR design team came straight off the 58, and were invited to EMD to help with the design of the 59. (It’s all in the Book)
Good looking locomotive though 👍
According to some older hands that are still on the railway (colleagues of mine), the Midland men didn’t have as many problems with the 58’s and wheelslip. That’s on the hillier Midland routes too!
Apparently, the Acton men just didn’t know how to drive them properly.
The National Railway museum was supposed to be taking in 58050, as it was the last ever Doncaster built locomotive. However, no effort was made to retrieve it and it was hurriedly scrapped in France.
It’s a real waste, especially since GBRf has proven that 56’s can be overhauled with different power units. The modular design should’ve been perfect for reengineering, but DB are in the business of destroying everything and running everything to destruction for their bonuses.
Several class 58s survive stored in Spain.... 58050 is one of them, its not been scrapped. Also 1 class 58 survives in France, stored in a siding in a freight yard with a wheel fault, so it cant be moved and is why it never made it to Alizay depot so avoided the scrap man..... for now.
@@stevedoel6306 I’m not sure that’s up to date information
Loco's had much more character in the 70s & 80s.
Back when we used to make them.
Wish we wouldn’t just outsource everything overseas and bring design and manufacture back to the U.K.
What a treat to start off my saturday, thankyou good sir
Great video. Used to see them briefly used in conjunction with the class 56 & 60 carrying the west waste yellow binliner train passing our home on the chiltern line from south ruislip during the mid 90’s.
I miss the sight of a class 58 on the main line I always liked having class 58.s on Railtours/Nuneaton Drags/Passenger Trains I wish we could go back to those days
The power unit wasn’t the same as the class 56. They had the 16 cylinder engine, a modified version that was in the class 50, the 58’s had the 12 cylinder engine that was tested in 47 901.
I did wonder where they all went. Coming back from Birmingham the other month I was surprised to see 016 and 023 at Leicester in quite shabby condition. Hopefully they'll be cleaned up.
I remember 6 of the buggers being dragged unceremoniously through Bradford on Avon c.1990, in various liveries and states of disrepair, their fates unknown but even though I left the railway in 1982 it still felt so wrong in every way, like Riddles standards of a previous generation...
Poor 56. But a reborn LMS 10000 is a great project and well and rightfully deserved.
Not as deserved as a replica 10203 from a 45 frame
Remember when Rail Riders hailed the launch of the Bones in 1983 at Doncaster? 😊
I always think of the class 58 as a 'what if' loco, if they had been geared for 60mph maximum speed and with sepex fitted then they might have performed better and lasted longer on the main line.
5:36 is Walsall railway station my home town & not much has changed since that video was taken 😅.
With the weird concourse walkway, from the saddlers Centre to the station. A strange shopping centre Railway mashup, well before New Street-Grand Central or the revamped Paddington.
One of the reasons for the slow introduction of the Class 56 was the amount of remedial work that was needed onto Romanian built locomotives. Everything from wiring conduits to bogie springs were substandard.
There was an east german diesel loco class the Br 119 (219 after reunification) that was called "Ceaucescus Rache" or "Ceaucescus Revenge" for that very reason.
They wrre also horribly unreliable, and all parts of ppor quality.
The Bukarest locomotive works were only kept alive be ause the RGW forbade anyone else in the Warsaw pact from building medium diesel locos.
The east Germans had a perfectly good loco in the Br118, but couldn't build it due to RGW/soviet interference.
@@LupusAries The 56's were built by Electroputere in Craiova.
@@LupusAries56s were squeezed out by Electroputere in Craiova
@@1258-Eckhart Hmm interesting, so it seems to be a quality problem with the whole romanian locomotive industry.
The class 58s had a smaller 12 cylinder engine, compared to the 56's 16 cylinder engine. Still the 58s produced slightly more power.
Fascinating again, thank you very much.
Another excellent watch. Was hoping this would appear after seeing the 58 appear briefly in your other railway episodes on the other classes
As usual a great video to watch, I've been following your channel since the early days. Still love the subjects you portray.
ACTS is not pronounced as one word "ACTS", but by it's individual letters A-C-T-S.
Very nice video as usual 👌. I’ve no love for the 58 personally, but an interesting watch nonetheless
I've been waiting for this one for a while, i used to see them when i was younger and then suddenly they vanished and i always wanted to know what became of them
A point of note is that class 58 used a Ruston Paxman V12 prim mover the class 56, using the Ruston Paxman V16 .both had tractive effort of 61800 lbs but the 58s could never put down the performance of the class 56 on wet rail ,the Ruston V16 having better wheel slip recovery and as you point out the 58s suffering more from this which didn't help!
58050 had the Sepex mod. as an experiment. Separately-excited traction motors were much more controllable and this system went on to be used in the Class 60s which were much less prone to slipping.
I always wondered about the 58s, thank you Ruairidh.
I don't think I ever saw one, living in different areas.
I guess that Mendip Quarries rejected them due to the low speed wheelslip (which the 56 also had), although I wonder if they ever tested them, or if they'd just lost faith in anything BREL did, at that point.
The 58s seemed to have an unusually long development period - 6 years a opposed to 2-3 for other BREL locos.
Excellent video, Ruairidh 😃
We'll always have 'little brother' .. the Ffesterbahn's Vale of Ffestiniog and if you want an impressive paperweight, the Isle of Man Railway's "Cabbage".
Great video as always. Very grateful!
The class 58 engine is different. The 56 has a Ruston Paxman 16RK3CT V-16 of 3250hp. The 58 does have a Ruston Paxman 12RK3ACT V-12 which produces 3300hp.
So the class 58 engine is a further evolution of the EE CSVT engine which produces the same power from less cylinders.
The Dutch 58s looked a bit odd when paired with the Dutch class 1200 electrics which towered above them, but they wer good performers.
ACTS is not pronounced as in he acts, but is an abbreviation in which the letters are pronounced individually as A-C-T-S. That company is defunct for around 10 years now.
I drove the Class 58 and class 1200 at ACTS, and liked both of them.
The miners' strike didn't cause the demise of the UK coal industry, it was the other way round. The strike was in response to the threat of a huge pit closure program which is exactly what took place in the years shortly after the end of the strike. So in other words, while one part of UK government (British Rail) was busily revamping its locomotive fleet to meet the demands of the coal industry another part of the same government was already planning to close that industry down.
The current DfT operated railway is indeed "part of the government", but BR was a nationalised industry in which the government (DoT) had no direct influence. Maybe there were conversations in the corridors, but the only operative lever the government then had was wielded by the Treasury, which set BR's budget. Additionally, as Rory says, the 58's were conceived in the 1970's, when nobody was thinking of a Thatcher government and its de-industrialisation of Britain policies. None of those CEGB coal fired power stations was life-expired in 1982.
The 58 was definitely a wasted opportunity. A much better loco than it's fate deserved, while others linger on till this day.
Also worthy of preservation note, is that there were spare 58 cabs built (in case of crash damage) and one of those has been cosmetically restored and is on display somewhere, also (i forget where - no doubt someone will post up).
YEY my FAVOURITE UK diesel.. 😉👍
Another excellent documentary.
They looked great in model railway OO guise
8:47. You actually say it as A-C-T-S (Afzet Container Transport Systeem), which in English translates to Sales Container Transport System (S-C-T-S)
Sales Container..??
Anyone else think that the 58's look like 2 class 20's frankenstiened together?
Yes can see a resemblance 😊
Large logo livery looked great on this loco. I liked the black diamonds tag on the rail freight livery too but I’m a wee bit biased in favour of the coal trains I used to like seeing on the move.
They were never shopped or painted in Large Logo livery (BR blue with large double arrow)?
Do you mean the original two-tone grey railfreight livery which had the sector logo (e.g. coal) painted large on the body side?
I thought they looked great in that livery and the Mainline blue livery.
@@wurlyone4685 They were delivered in large logo railfreight grey livery before the switch to two tone sectorised grey livery.
@@citizenerased1992 yes spot on that's it. They still look just as good now like that.
@@wurlyone4685 yes sorry layman terminology from me there.
@@adammoss5284 no worries! We're all always learning:)
Dem Bones, dem Bones...
This loco kind of reminds me of the G2000 we have in the Netherlands.
Wrong place at the wrong time. Such a shame the class 58's never really caught on. Something that might've been.
Excellent video my friends awesome like 👍🏻 Greeting 🙋🏻♂️
Given its use in various Continental countries/liveries it might be a good candidate for a TT120 model.
I was due to see a 58 loco myself but unfortunately it didn’t come to the Severn valley railway
I’m sure 58023 came to the SVR recently.
apparantly, there is talk that the NRM might preserved 58050. It is sad that they weren't able to preserved 58001
Someone commented on here that 58050 was never recovered from France and eventually scraped.
@@brianfearn4246 I’ve just checked the Class 58 Wiki page (which I know isn’t that truthful) but it looks like 050 is currently in storage in Albacete, France
What progress we’ve made made in my lifetime. We no longer make locos and no longer exploit a highly efficient energy supply that is efficiently transported via rail.
Now the mad ongoing deindustrialisation makes us reliant on foreign states, some that despise our way of living.
With no significant mining or manufacturing industry there is no incentive to maintain a healthy and educated working class. We are "levelling down" to bring the country into line with the third world.
I agree with your point on the demise of British manufacturing and industrial power, in my opinion the ability to produce our own materials is important for national security.
It is wrong, however, to lament the departure of coal fired power stations.
The union insanity of the 1980s regretfully did themselves in. When the unemployment cheques stopped during strikes ended, good move. Management apathy, in parallel with Union bullying did not help. Why BR was broken into so many pieces is silly. But …
@@geoffreylee5199 I once watched a documentary where BR CEO John Welsby said the BRB were not per se against privatisation, but nobody from the government asked them how the railway was actually run.
It seems to me that if the issues on the 58s were ironed out, they'd still possibly in service in some shape or form today
I have vague memories of seeing these around on the SWML when I was a kid. I always found them much more interesting than the 56s. Shame they didn't last, but I guess these things are often a game of survival of the fittest (or the most appropriate/useful anyhow).
Hello from Kansas 🇺🇲
Excellent video, 58s are only a 12cyl engine whereas a 56 is 16cyl
You mentioned wheelslip that was most certainly an issue with them but even worse was 56042 the 56 with similar bogies to a 58 makes me wonder why they went ahead with that bogie . Cheers Russ
The 56 bogie was based on an existing Brush design. I wonder if BREL would have had to pay licencing fees to use it on the 58?
I was born in 1968 (age 56) and thought I'd seen every class of diesel loco to run for BR. However, living in Scotland, it was the one of the few classes that eluded me, others being the class 17, 71 and 74. I think I'm right in saying that 58 never ventured into Scotland but perhaps I'm wrong?
We seem to have a habit of underusing locomotives in this country , thinking of the 67, 92 and these
I remember seeing the very first one at Crewe. I find them pleasant to look at. But as others have pointed out not the best design in practical terms.
Awesome video!
Quite the irony, ending up helping build better trains overseas! Thanks from AU RMV.
Could you do a video on the České Dráhy class 371 and 372 please? I them at Plzeň train station and I want to know if they're as hefty as they look. Wikipedia doesn't really have enough information on them. :/
I think I went on the first railtour to be hauled by class 58. If not it was a very early one.
Introduced after an extended test and development period, does that include the usual objections from the Trade Unions or the anti rail Government. I saw a lot on the MML probably tooling up for Asfordby mine but that was another story.
I think there's a bit of a resemblance between the class 58, 59 , 66
How many locos did UK build just before their bread and butter contracts dried up as soon as they were built. 58, 60, 67, 92?
Yet Class 56 locomotives are being reborn as Class 69.
They initially looked at doing that to class 58s but found the EMD 710 wouldn’t fit
@@andrewreynolds4949 That is too bad but makes the case for not planning for future options.
I wasn’t aware that _any_ of the 58s have actually operated in heritage service. The lack of vacuum brakes - plus the specialist electronics - makes them very limited in their application.
Truly shameful some class 58s had more revenue earning years abroad than in the UK considering it was the British Public that paid for them. Another infamous BR case of mismanagement
Who said Britain didn't play a major role in the development of the European high speed network? 🙂
Just about anyone awake this side of 1938.
Seriously ... What have we got? The blistering speed of the Class 43s was dependent on track sufficiently decent to get into 3 figures and the Pendelino is APT MkII flogged back to us by Italy. HS1 is a branch of LGV Nord and HS2 is looking increasingly like a few dozen isolated miles not reaching the terminals the scheme has been cut back to.
In the time it's taken us to fail to reopen the handful of miles either Portishead or Tavistock, or agree to reopen Lewes - Uckfield, the Chinese have opened many thousands of kilometers of brand new high speed lies and introduced stock to run on them.
Those rose tinted spectacles may be comfortable, but they evidently can't see past the end of the wearer's nose!
The Class 56s were also air brake only. Not surprising as BR was phasing out vacuum braked stock since the 1970s.
The costs of transferring the 56 build from doncaster to crewe, for doncaster to build a relatively small class, 'with export potential' (export sales a nice round nil) should have been avoided. The railways, and the country's finances would have been better served by taking the 56 build up to 200 on the existing donny production line.
Hindsight of course is 20/20
@andrewreynolds4949 very true. The builds of North British diesel and electric locos, allowing a 'fireman' on the footplate of diesels, building 100 extra class 20s to replace another failed class, when there was no need for further type ones, so they spent most of their lives coupled as pairs, the plan (fortunately rescinded) to close and demolish St Pancras . Plenty of stupid decisions where after the event 20/20 makes things clear.
@@brianwillson9567 Really I would go further than that, and say they shouldn't have phased out steam and introduced diesels as quickly as they did. The BR Standards and other relatively new steam locomotives could easily have kept everything running while they ran actual design trials and a reasonable, phased development plan. I don't think there was anything else that hurt the railways in the UK quite as much as throwing virtually untested and (as it turned out) incredibly unreliable diesel locomotives into service while cutting up their brand new would-be backup power. Without that incredible waste of resources, more would have been available to invest in the rest of the system and therefore would have left a better performing system today.
@andrewreynolds4949 100% agree. Removal of steam much too rushed. The modernisation scheme locos never given enough time to assess the gems from the lemons, and to build second generation locos from proper assessment of the initial builds. Depots and workshops geared to 'dirty' steam now expected to maintain diesels under those conditions, boilersmiths made redundant but not enough staff trained and competent to work on diesels and the "'elecrtic machinery' inside the diesels, bowing to union pressure to keep a 'fireman' on the footplate of diesels and electric locos, scrapping steam engines well short of economic life. The list of errors goes on. Instead of 1958 to 1968, the removal of steam should have been 1958 to 1978.
@@brianwillson9567 Looking at how dieselization happened in the US, the early prototypes were rather poor. It wasn't really until the 2nd or 3rd major iterations that they really improved enough to gain any major headway into replacing steam; even then, modern steam held out for a very long time in some places. BR tried to do in 10 years or less what the US did over 40 with very little testing beforehand; no wonder it turned out poorly.
Why does it remind me of a irish class 071
Something deeply ironic about British diesel freight locomotives being bought by other European countries to help construct their high speed raid networks....
What do the Class engines mean.
What do you mean?
Class 58 didi not share mechanical equipment with Class 56
They didn't get scrapped because they were good!
Class 58, penultimate death throe of British locomotive development
Surely most of the same quantity of coal was being burnt in power stations for most of the 80s, so much if the same quantity needed to be moved, just from ports instead of mines?
Such a shame with the Class 58. Wish they kept them going or converted them. So much power wasted!
These engines were wasted they were mostly destroyed in sidings abroad what a shame
Such a waste of useful locomotives, even if they had their issues
I look forward to your videos! 🤓
fun fact: in a railway mod for minecraft, i built a model for this loco, and can be used in the Railwaycraft modpack via Traincraft
Same engine as a Class 56....really?
c
I drove 45 of them. They were crap in comparison to the 56s. Wheelslip/overheating/poor sanding capability. Fairly quiet admittedly in the cab. Oh and the cab heat worked off the water temp just like central heating.......piss poor!
The class 58 does not use a class 56 engine.
Which if you look at modern class 70s they are so similar there the 21st century bone lol
More's the pity.
A colliery is a coal mine. So there's no need to say colliery and mine.
The Tories destroyed EVERY industry, rendering these engines useless.
What's happened to your voice and diction?
Nothing?
@@rastewart100 no, it's changed. Sounds as if it's been put through some sort of computer synthesiser.
Another waste and disgrace(!)
Potentially a interesting video on the Class 58's however my only honest criticism of the video is the AI chatbot generated voice if it was a proper persons voice narrating the video it would have more appeal 😮
That’s Ruairidh’s natural voice, no AI involved.
That's literally his voice.
AI voice isn't cool.
This isn’t AI voice, just a particular dictation style
Not an AI voice. This is just how he narrates
This is his natural voice and the diction used is to emulate the old school workplace videos.
first, or second, i don' know.
Who cares? Do you want a medal or something?
Nobody cares bro😂😂