Locomotive is still going strong at Llangollen Railway

Llangollen Railway's Class 47 diesel-electric locomotive will be working this Saturday and Sunday, May 28 and 29.

The loco, also known as a Brush Type 4 was a regular performer on the North Wales Coast line and spent a good proportion of her working life at Crewe diesel depot between 1973 and 1990, just a mile or so from where she emerged brand new from Crewe Works in March 1964.

Moving south to Old Oak Common London in 1990, she ended her 29-year British Rail career working semi-fast passenger trains between London Paddington and Oxford, before being withdrawn in March 1993.

After being saved from scrapping by the renowned music impresario and railway enthusiast Pete Waterman, she was purchased by the Llangollen Diesel Group in 1996 for use on the Llangollen Railway, where she has been ever since.

Llangollen Railway's Class 47 diesel-electric locomotive in 1979.

She has now been preserved at Llangollen for nearly as long as she spent working for British Rail!

With the exception of a few years out of traffic for repairs to her bodywork, engine and cooling system, the loco, currently running with her early 1970s era number of 1566 in British Railways blue livery, has been a very useful and active member of the Llangollen Railway fleet.

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She is powered by an 83-litre, 2580hp 12-cylinder twin bank Sulzer LDA28C engine. Sulzer are a Swiss Engineering business, but the engines for the 47s were all built in England under licence by Vickers at Barrow in Furness using a factory built in the early 1950s to produce submarine engines in large quantities in anticipation of an escalation of the war in Korea, which was never required.

The diesel engine drives a Brush TG160-60 Direct Current generator which in-turn drives six traction motors, one for each wheelset.

For more information, go to https://llangollen-railway.co.uk/