The Diesel-Electric Obsolete From the Start | British Rail D0280 Falcon | History in the Dark

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:02]I am a falcon and I want to Wait, that that that doesn't That's not how the song goes. Sorry, guys. I'm still on lion, but today we're talking about falcon.

[00:00:13]Otherwise known as British Rail Class 53, though everyone just calls her the falcon.

[00:00:19]If you watched my video on the lion, you probably already know where this is going. Falcon was one of the other prototypes included in the total of three built for British Railways who were looking for a second generation type 4 diesel locomotive. She was a Co-Co wheel arrangement constructed in 1961 by Brush Traction with a maximum speed of 100 mph, a power output of 2,880 horsepower, and a tractive effort of 60,000 lb of force. She had two different numbers during her life. A D0280 was her original, and later she'd be renumbered to just 1200, [music] but most people just called her Falcon.

[00:01:01]Brush started work on her in 1959, but ran into a bit of a problem. See, on their end of things anyway, no single lightweight diesel engine was powerful enough to meet the requirements, at least not anything they had. So, instead they opted to use two prime movers within her, which were both Maybach MD 655 diesel engines, a German design, and the same kind used by the Class 52 the Westerns, which were diesel-hydraulic locomotives. It's probably worth mentioning, uh just to be clear, though they shared a prime mover, the Falcon was a diesel-electric, which is what the design parameters called for. They just used the same engine.

[00:01:44]Oh, uh also, in my video about the lion when I talked about the Hymeks, I said Class 45, and I don't know why I did that because they're Class 35. Uh that was just a fluff on my part. I double-checked my notes and my sources and everything, and yeah, they all say 35. I just can't freaking read, apparently. So, yeah, I just wanted to clear that up. That was my fault. I apologize. I apologize.

[00:02:07]Hymeks are Class 35. Uh they have nothing to do with this story. Being a diesel-electric instead of hydraulic, the MD 655s drove generators and traction motors of Brush's own design.

[00:02:18]She had six to be precise.

[00:02:20]And Brush could only get away with this because both the Warships and the Westerns had been built under license by Bristol Siddley, which was part of Hawker Siddley. Hawker purchased Brush in 1957, meaning they could use those engines. They had ready access to them, and they were powerful enough to meet what they were looking for. In the end, she looked well, kind of like a basic British diesel of the time, similar in layout to the lion, but not quite the same. And she had a different livery. Instead of the glorious white that the lion rocked, Falcon sported lime green and chestnut brown. She was initially tested in 1961 on the Eastern Region and based at Finsbury Park. But eventually she'd be transferred over to the Western Region for power unit performance testing, where she was put on the Lickey Incline on February 6th, 1962. She did okay at that. She wasn't super powerful, but she was powerful enough to meet the needs.

[00:03:23]But she was returned to Brush in March of 1962 so they could upgrade her, as well as give her cast Falcon nameplates because they wanted her to be fancy.

[00:03:32]She was returned to British Railways in 1963, spending 6 months working out of Darnall Shed in Sheffield on both passenger and freight trains.

[00:03:43]After which the testing period was completed, and she was again sent back to Brush for some improvements to be made. Her livery was changed slightly during this time, instead given a two-tone green with half yellow ends.

[00:03:58]And she was given back to British Rail with the intention they would put her into active service. And they did, to be fair. It's important to understand that the Falcon, in her way and similarly to the lion, was a perfectly serviceable diesel. She worked quite well.

[00:04:14]The problem was her exact specifications were no longer seen as ideal. And she was an evolutionary dead end. What happened was advances in diesel engine technology had rapidly increased in Britain in particular.

[00:04:30]They no longer needed to outsource designs. Their diesel engines worked pretty well by that time. As a result, Falcon was actually obsolete almost from the very start of the testing phase. The big thing that held her back was having two prime movers. Most diesels don't have two. They just have one big one.

[00:04:48]And newer engines were both larger and lighter than previous options, allowing for more power, but not being too heavy.

[00:04:56]British Rail called for other submissions for a new design, which Brush actually did win, which became the Class 47. It being some resemblances to both the lion and the falcon in layout, but again, some still argue with me about this. Neither is really a prototype of the 47 in a real way. Uh Brush did learn a lot from the Falcon.

[00:05:17]So, in that regard, I guess you could call them a prototype, but no, not not directly. She did influence their future design parameters, though.

[00:05:26]As for the Falcon, well, they didn't want to get rid of her because she still worked fine. They just weren't going to make any more of her. She never got any sisters and was a one-off design.

[00:05:36]British Rail opted to keep her around since she could still do some work for them.

[00:05:42]From 1965 onwards, she, well, still under Brush ownership, was contracted with British Rail so that they would be responsible for operation and repairs.

[00:05:53]Unless of course those repairs were particularly major, in which case she'd be sent back to Brush. She'd be allocated to Bristol Bath Road alongside the Class 52 Westerns, which makes sense because they did share the same prime mover. She was diesel-electric, not hydraulic like them, but they had the same engine. So, the workers would be somewhat familiar with her. And by 1970, British Rail opted to buy the locomotive from Brush for just her scrap value, with BREL Swindon rebuilding her slightly, replacing her old-style vacuum brakes with modern air brakes, and she was repainted in rail blue, still retaining her yellow ends, and given her new number, 1200. And she was allocated back to Bristol Bath Road to be with the Class 52s she'd become besties with by that point. And by March of 1974, she was on iron ore trains. She also had a steam heating boiler, though that was the year that that was isolated because they had no plans to ever put her on passenger service ever again, and most of the new passenger coaches they had by that point no longer needed steam heating, so it was unnecessary. But in 1975, she was finally slated for withdrawal. In the '70s, British Rail was starting to standardize their fleet.

[00:07:07]They wanted to share as much commonality as possible between designs. They had settled on diesel-electrics, which meant the withdrawal of all their diesel-hydraulics, for example.

[00:07:19]But it also included more weird things, and Falcon fell under that category. She had two prime movers. Her prime movers were also foreign. They were not domestic built, meaning she was classified as non-standard and pulled from service. There were efforts to save her, interestingly enough. Some did try because she was one of a kind and had worked for 15 years.

[00:07:43]She was unique and special and even had a really cool name in the form of Falcon. Some rail fans did want to save her, but it was a failure. She was finally broken up between March and April 1976 at Cashmore's of Newport, which is a shame. Just like the lion, she's long gone. Lived a bit longer than her and was able to actually serve British Rail, unlike the lion who was only really in her experimental phase and then dismantled by her own builders.

[00:08:16]Brush, in the Falcon's case, decided to give her a chance to live a little bit, which is sweet.

[00:08:22]But unfortunately, the preservationists couldn't save her, even though they tried. Though there are some double-O gauge models of her produced by Heljan back in 2007.

[00:08:33]Also, I hear terrible things about Heljan, so I'm not sure that's a good idea.

[00:08:38]>> [laughter] >> But it's an option, you know, one of those things.

[00:08:42]Till next time, this is Darkness, and I bid you all a farewell.