British Rail Class 02
Encyclopedia
The British Rail
British Rail
British Railways , which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was the operator of most of the rail transport in Great Britain between 1948 and 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the "Big Four" British railway companies and lasted until the gradual privatisation of British Rail, in stages...

 Class 02 were a class of twenty 0-4-0
0-4-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 0-4-0 represents one of the simplest possible types, that with two axles and four coupled wheels, all of which are driven...

 diesel-hydraulic shunting locomotive
Locomotive
A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...

s built by the Yorkshire Engine Company
Yorkshire Engine Company
The Yorkshire Engine Company was a small independent locomotive manufacturer in Sheffield, England. The Company was formed in 1865 and continued to produce locomotives and carry out general engineering work until 1965...

 in 1960 (first ten, D2850-D2859) and 1961 (D2860-D2869) for service in areas of restricted loading gauge
Loading gauge
A loading gauge defines the maximum height and width for railway vehicles and their loads to ensure safe passage through bridges, tunnels and other structures...

 and curvature such as docks. They had the door to the cab at the rear, with a railed veranda behind the cab; this feature was very unusual on British Rail locomotives although was used on many Yorkshire Engine Co. designs and was/is quite normal in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

n practice.

Post-BR use

With the changes in the role of the British railway system and the closing of many of the facilities in which the Class 02 locomotives worked, they were increasingly surplus to requirements. The first locomotive was withdrawn from service in 1969 and the last one in 1973. Only three survived long enough to enter the BR TOPS computer system: 02 001 (formerly D2851), 02 003 (D2853), and 02 004 (D2856). Being only nine to fourteen years old when withdrawn, they still had a lot of life left in them, and the majority were sold to private industry.

One example was employed by the National Coal Board at Chatterley Whitfield Colliery near Stoke-on-Trent; this locomotive (BR number required) stayed there when Chatterley Whitfield briefly became a mining museum.

Preservation

A large number (at least seven) are now in preservation, where their small size makes them perfect as a workshop shunter or for use in track maintenance work. One (D2860) is the works shunter for the National Railway Museum
National Railway Museum
The National Railway Museum is a museum in York forming part of the British National Museum of Science and Industry and telling the story of rail transport in Britain and its impact on society. It has won many awards, including the European Museum of the Year Award in 2001...

 in York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...

, where it is used to move much larger exhibits around.
  • D2854 by Heritage Shunters Trust
    Heritage Shunters Trust
    Heritage Shunters Trust is a trading name of The South Yorkshire Railway Co. Ltd. which was founded in 1989. HST is a railway preservation society and is the only preservation society that solely specialises in the preservation of diesel shunters in the UK...

  • D2858 at Midland Railway - Butterley
    Midland Railway - Butterley
    The Midland Railway – Butterley is a heritage railway, formerly known until 2004 as the Midland Railway Centre, at Butterley, near Ripley in Derbyshire.-Overview:...

  • D2860 at National Railway Museum, York
  • D2866 by Heritage Shunters Trust
    Heritage Shunters Trust
    Heritage Shunters Trust is a trading name of The South Yorkshire Railway Co. Ltd. which was founded in 1989. HST is a railway preservation society and is the only preservation society that solely specialises in the preservation of diesel shunters in the UK...

  • D2867 Diane at Battlefield Line Railway
    Battlefield Line Railway
    The Battlefield Line Railway is a heritage railway in Leicestershire, England. It runs from Shackerstone to Shenton , via Market Bosworth, a total of...

  • D2868 by Harry Needle, on loan to Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester

Technical details

The engine is a Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce Limited
Rolls-Royce Limited was a renowned British car and, from 1914 on, aero-engine manufacturing company founded by Charles Stewart Rolls and Henry Royce on 15 March 1906 as the result of a partnership formed in 1904....

 C6NFL176 6-cyl. in-line
Straight-6
The straight-six engine or inline-six engine is a six-cylinder internal combustion engine with all six cylinders mounted in a straight line along the crankcase...

 connected to a Rolls-Royce series 10,000 3-stage twin-disc torque converter and a manually operated YEC reduction and reversing final drive gearbox. The engine and transmission are mounted at an angle of 30 degrees to the horizontal to allow the overall length and height of the locomotive to be reduced.

Unlike most earlier British Rail shunters, the Class 02s were built with train vacuum brakes.

Industrial locomotives

In addition to these locomotives produced for British Railways, around 50 very similar locomotives (most with diesel-electric transmission and/or more powerful engines) were produced for industrial customers. Many of these can now be found in preservation also, since few industrial users have their own railways anymore. Quite a few are dressed up in fictitious British Railways livery and numbering (for example - 02 101).

External links




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