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Experimental Bo-Bo diesel locomotive No 10800 stands in the Midland bay at the head of a Rugby to Peterborough local passenger train. In 1945 the LMS' Chief Mechanical Engineer HG Ivatt decided to produce a basic design for an 827 bhp diesel-electric locomotive for comparison with his slightly less powerful Class 2 2-6-0 and 2-6-2T and slightly more powerful Class 4 4-6-0 steam engines on secondary and branch lines. In 1946 the LMS placed an order with the North British Locomotive Company of Glasgow to produce a locomotive to their specification. The design adopted was like an elongated shunter, mounted on two four wheeled carriage type bogies - each carrying two nose suspended traction motors - with the cab slightly set in from one end. The power unit used was a centrally-mounted 16 cylinder Davey Paxman 16RPH engine which drove British Thomson-Houston electrical equipment located just behind the cab in the long hood section, which also housed a radiator group with side grilles and a roof fan. A ladder on the side of the short nose gave access to the filler cap of the 300 gallon tank of the Clarkson train heating boiler. The Clarkson device however soon proved unreliable and was replaced by a Clayton boiler. The cab arrangement enabled the driver to face the direction of travel using duplicate controls. The loco was constructed just after Nationalisation in 1948-50 and when completed carried the British Railways number 10800 (as opposed to the envisaged LMS number 800) beneath the diamond shaped NBL worksplate. The livery was standard black with silver bogies and - prior to press demonstrations - a silver hood roof. After release from North British No.10800 underwent testing in Scotland. After a few months the loco was allocated to British Railways' London Midland Region at Willesden and operated tests in the London area. In March 1952 it was reallocated to Brighton from where it operated on the Victoria-Oxted line and various Central and South Eastern routes such as those between Victoria and London Bridge to East Grinstead and Tunbridge Wells to assess branch line operation. The Southern sojourn of 10800 ended in early 1955 when it was reallocated to Plaistow shed on Eastern Region for further testing, eventually being returned to the LMR and deployed from Rugby shed on such workings as on the Birmingham to Norwich line before being withdrawn from service in August 1959. By this time a small class of very similar Bo-Bo single cab locomotives built by NBL were being introduced as part of British Railways' 1955 Modernisation Plan. However, these Class 16s - and the very similar Class 15s produced by British Thomson-Houston - were to have careers of only a decade as branch and secondary lines were felled by the infamous Beeching Axe. After withdrawal 10800 was taken to Doncaster Works where it lay for many months awaiting a decision on its future. In 1962 however Brush of Loughborough bought the Bo-Bo machine for research into commutatorless traction motors. Brush replaced the original Paxman engine with a 1400 bhp Bristol Siddeley Maybach MD655, which turned a Brush 3-phase brushless alternating current (ac) generator. The generator output was then passed through sophisticated electronics before powering ac traction equipment. In the tradition of Brush experimental locomotives it was named, although no "Hawk" plates were ever carried or even cast. It was numbered 710 on the Brush construction list. After modification at Brush, Hawk was put through a test programme for most of 1963-64, prior to receiving major body attention and repainting into a green and grey livery. In early 1965 the loco was inspected by BR and transferred to the Rugby Testing Station for performance tests. After further static trials Hawk was accepted back onto BR tracks for active operation over the former Great Central Leicester-Nottingham route. Although basically successful it suffered a number of technical problems, and by 1968 Brush decided not to continue with the project. Hawk was stored at Loughborough before being finally broken up in 1972-73. During the 1972 Miner's Strike the engine and generator were cannibalised to provide emergency power for the Loughborough works. Courtesy of Michael Davie and Gloucestershire Transport History.
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