The National Rail museum has recently
turned down EWS's offer of donating BR blue 56006 from
its heritage pool for the national collection. It was
deemed by the committee members not be an "important"
enough design. Many enthusiast will disagree and see the
class as an important stop-gap addition to BR's heavy
haul capabilities of the late 1970's which have served
well with little maintenance well into 2004.
Above: 56033 & 56103
Opposite: 56062
BR/Brush Class 56
Service : 1976-2004
Engine : Ruston 16RK3CT
Power : 3,250hp / 2420kW
Wheel. : Co-Co
Builder : Electroputere/BR Doncaster & Crewe
Number : 135
The early 70s oil crisis saw the need for a new
generation of dedicated heavy freight locomotive mainly
for coal haulage. the class 56 was the first of these,
based on the class 47 design and superstructure with a
powerful development of the EE medium speed engine. the
first 30 of the class were built in Romania, the rest in
the UK.
56033 stands outside Margam depot
A Brush design intended for freight use,
the first 30 were built under contract in Romania
entering service during 1977 and the remainder were
constructed by BREL at Doncaster and Crewe with the
final machine entering service in 1984. The first class
members were withdrawn when the earlier Romanian built
batch started to give more trouble than they worth.
However the first member of the class to go was the non
standard 56046 back in the 1980's.
