Talk:British Rail Class 42

Comparison ?
quote:"The new locomotives were substantially lighter than previous diesel-electric designs: a Class 44 'Peak' locomotive weighed 138 tons and required 8 axles to carry it; the D800s weighed less than 80 tons and only needed 4 axles"

I don't think this is quite a fair (or correct comparison), comparing a design of similar age Class 20 shows basically comparible axle weight, engine power, and tractive effort (the class 20 is ~10% less in most respects, as well as being slower)...

The class44 comparison would always be a bad one since it is an awfully heavy loco...

Suggest comaring to a non-elephantine loco. Thanks. (tend to agree all the same with the principle though.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.85.58 (talk) 23:34, 10 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Presumably the comparison is for locos of similar power ratings. If you compare the Warship with TWO Class 20s, the engine powers are similar, but 2x20 are heavier than 1x44! Not sure that the tractive effort comparisons are fair; presumably a heavier loco would produce a higher tractive effort, at the expense of speed/acceleration.
 * EdJogg (talk) 01:16, 11 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I think the class 52 article says it better - "The theoretical advantage of diesel-hydraulic was simple—it resulted in a lighter locomotive than equivalent diesel-electric transmission."
 * I'd avoid the 44 comparison because the 44's look heavy in comparison to both hydraulic, and other electric designs eg comparing the more modern 47's to the 44's shows how awful they were..
 * What I've been trying to find is a good comparison of electric and hydraulic tranmissions (in general) to reference in the text - but I can't seem to find one at the moment.
 * It's certainly a very readable article. If I find a reliable engineering article comparing the two transmission types I might try to replace the 44 reference. As it is I don't want to spoil the flow of the text for my personnal nitpicking.
 * Thanks for your time. (sorry for wasting it.) I think now I was reading in terms of comparison of transmission systems rather than in its historical context. Re-reading it I'm embarressed to have brought up this up.
 * I definately say this is a good article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.85.58 (talk) 13:01, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Multiple working
Are you sure that 870 wasn't refitted for multiple working too? I lived in the North, and my first ever (hence memorable) sight of Warships was at Temple Meads on a family holiday to Devon in (i think) 1968. Our Newton-le-Willows to Newton Abbot motorail stopped on a centre road side-on to Magpie and Zulu. I suppose there could have been a second driver on board Zulu, but that would be odd. Happy days. 86.148.252.237 (talk) 18:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I have checked the only list that I know of; and D870 is not among them. However, I find that D870 was given jumper cables for electric train heating, although the ETH was not fitted. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:17, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. There must have been some other reason why they were paired. It's just one thing I remember, even though I was only 11. Out came the lolly stick to underline my first two Warships!.  Great holiday, although as a train-mad kid I would have preferred to spend the entire week at Dawlish :-) 86.148.252.237 (talk) 20:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Possible change to the title of this article
This article is currently named in accordance the WikiProject UK Railways naming conventions for British rolling stock allocated a TOPS number. A proposal to change this convention and/or its scope is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways, where your comments would be welcome.

German V200 max speed
1. I changed the text to give the max speed ot the West German V 200 as 140 km per hour, as opposed to the incorrect 120 km per hour previously stated in the text. -- Look up the wikipedia-texts about the West German V 200 which correctly give their max speed as 140 km per hour.

2. West Germany did NOT have a 120 km per hour speed limit at the time mentioned in the text.

3. This was East Germany where speeds were that restricted.

4. East Germany did have a type they called V 200. That was totally different from the West German V 200.

In fact, the East German V 200 was of the Soviet M 62 type utilized across the whole Eastern bloc railway sytems. Its max speed was only 100 km per hour and it was almost exclusively used for goods trains, due to a lack of train heating equipment.

Norpac1 (talk) 18:31, 31 May 2011 (UTC)norpac1