Tuesday 3 January 2012

Clayton fun

Ok, I know I was only recently banging on about Clayton Type 1s, but then I stumbled across this pair of fabulous colour images and I couldn't resist. The first is a rare-ish shot showing a Class 17 on a passenger train:


That was taken at Stirling in 1965, the year it was introduced, with a train for Edinburgh. This next one was taken the following year at Thornton Junction station, with a freight:


Just look at the delightful oily-black sheen on the lovely two-tone green colour scheme. Wonderful images.

4 comments:

Polomint said...

It's interesting that we've not seen a recent attempt at the "single mid-body cab" design, given the improvements in technology over the decades.

To what do you attribute that LeDuc?

Cheers, Paul

LeDuc said...

I'm not sure you're right: have a look at Stadler's electric shunters (eg, the ee922), and Vossloh's diesel shunters (eg, the G6, although admittedly that's more 1/3rd-slash-2/3rds).

A google image search for Stadler ee922 and Vossloh G6 should do the business for you.

Polomint said...

Thanks - bowing to superior knowledge - but the Stadler is a cute toy - and electric rather than diesel.

The Vossloh is a shunter and seems to have only one engine, but it will be interesting to see if other members of the "family" match the wider design brief of the Class 17.

Standing by for additional illumination(!)

Cheers, Polomint

LeDuc said...

I think the wider design brief for the Class 17 is no longer relevant: it was designed primarily to handle trip freight, a class of traffic that has just about disappeared from every railway in the western world. Good visibility was required to enable easy shunting (though, as it turned out, the Clayton wasn't great for crews doing that work because the critical area in front of the bonnet was not particularly easy to see).

Incidentally, the Stadler Ee922, far from being a cute toy, is capable of not only shunting but of operating trains at up to 120kph. It may look Tonka-ish but it's an extremely serious piece of kit.