User:MinorProphet/Draft subpages/English Electric Type 3B



The English Electric Type 3B was a steeple cab 4-wheel industrial electric locomotive made by English Electric. Around 35 were built from 1921 to 1951, of which about six are still preserved.

Design and manufacture
The locomotives were built to order according each customer's track gauge and power requirements, so very few were exactly the same. They were all driven by electric traction motors, one per axle, each with a power rating of 35, 50, or 75 hp with a total maximum of 150hp. Electrical power could be transmitted from: overhead wires (Pantograph or trolley pole); from third rail; or from lead-acid batteries. All types featured a central cab with sloping bonnets at either end. Locomotives which were powered from overhead lines or third rail had the spaces under the low-lying bonnet filled with ballast, scrap metal or concrete. The battery-powered versions had taller bonnets fitted with ventilation grilles to prevent build-up of explosive gases. Some models could accept both types of power, and a switch in the cab allowed instant changing from batteries to external power, if fitted.Refs needed, fool. Maerdy?

Most of the locomotives were constructed at the Preston works of Dick, Kerr & Co., one of the five engineering firms which combined to form English Electric in 1919.

Notation
Under the Whyte notation of wheel arrangement used in the United Kingdom, small electric locomotives can be referred to either as 0-4-0 or 4w. Strictly speaking, 0-4-0 refers to the number of coupled driving wheels in a steam engine. The Industrial Railway Society uses 0-4-0BE (battery electric) and 0-4-0WE (wire electric). The terms 4wBE and 4wWE address this anomaly. The Type 3Bs would probably appear as B (two separate powered axles) in the UIC classification.

History
The Type 3Bs were typically used for shunting wagons from railway sidings and goods yards on main (or branch) lines to coal-fired power stations, although some were used on municipal tramways.

Croydon A power station - works no. 692 (1925).

Works No. 722 (1927) (Oakbank No 4) - Winchburgh Electric Railway - Oakbank Oil Company Ltd - Winchburgh Refinery. 2 ft 6 in gauge. Niddry Castle oil works on the Hopetoun estate closed in 1960 and with it the little electric railway that linked the works to shale oil mines at Duddingston, Totleywells and Whitequarries. The 'bings' or slag heaps from the shale mines grew to enormous proportions, and are still there (in 2020).

Upper Boat power station, Pontypridd, then CEGB at Back O'Th'Bank power station in Bolton, Lancashire (ref Maerdy);  The Derbyshire & Nottinghamshire Electric Power Company at Spondon power station in Derbyshire (ref Spondon No. 1) - not retired until 1987 when replaced by diesels.

Blackpool Corporation: LMS railway siding behind the Copse Road tram depot in Fleetwood to Thornton Gate sidings, 2.5 miles away, where the coal would be off-loaded for onward delivery by various waiting coal merchants. Then used on Blackpool permanent way fleet, weed-killing etc.

In Glasgow, a Type 3B ran on tram tracks down the Govan Road, hauling railway wagons loaded with steel from the Govan Goods Yard to the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company. These locos had two axle-suspended EE505 motors each rated at 75 HP. The locomotive has a handbrake, rheostatic braking and, unusually, a tramway-type magnetic track brake for emergency use. Trolley poles were fitted after the trams were withdrawn in 1958. Trolleybus overhead was erected, with spurs into the Fairfield Shipbuilding yard and Govan Cross goods station.

Glasgow's tramlines had an unusual track gauge of 4'-7¾" [1,416 mm]. This was to permit 4'-8½" [1,435 mm] standard gauge railway wagons to be operated over parts of the tram system (particularly in the Govan area) using their wheel flanges running in the slots of the tram tracks.

Tech data
Info for Crich:
 * Makers: Dick, Kerr & Co., Preston, Lancashire.
 * Gauge: 4’ 8½”
 * Motor: Dick, Kerr DK30 2 x 50hp
 * Controller: DK DB1 K33E (later English Electric E.E. Z4)
 * Weight: 10 tons, including 2 tons ballast

Technical data – Type 3B battery version :4
 * Introduced: 1921-1951
 * Configuration: 4 Wheel electric
 * Total Built: Around 35
 * Weight: 20T
 * Power: 100HP
 * Driver Diameter: 33"
 * Power Source: 180 Lead acid batteries
 * Voltage : 320-400V

Spondon info:
 * Number built: 3
 * Built: 1935-46
 * Builder: English Electric
 * Motor: 2 x English Electric traction motors (200v DC OHLE or battery)
 * Power: 2 x 35 hp (26 kW)
 * Wheel arrangement: 4wBE

Electric Railway Museum official website

Preserved examples
——
 * Works No. 717 National Tramway Museum, Crich.
 * Works No. 788 (1930) - Ribble Steam Railway - used at Stafford works of English Electric. - 70hp
 * Works No. 905 - Spondon No. 1 (1935) Battlefield Line Railway- since June 2018. (Previously at Electric Railway Museum, Warwickshire)
 * Works No. 1130 - Spondon No. 2 (1939) Foxfield Railway works
 * Works No. 1131 - Bo'ness and Kinneil Railway - used at the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company
 * Works No. 1378 (1944) - Museum of Science and Industry (Manchester) - CEGB 'Bolton'
 * There is an unrestored English Electric 0-4-0BE No. 2417/7936 at Astley Green Colliery Museum, but it dates from c1957 and is not a Type 3B.

In popular culture
A Type 3B 0-4-0BE and a Hunslet Austerity 0-6-0ST are featured in the Mesh Tools 'Return to Maerdy' add-on for the Rail Simulator game.