The
Córas Iompair Éireann 001 Class locomotive was manufactured by
Metropolitan-Vickers
Metropolitan-Vickers, Metrovick, or Metrovicks, was a British heavy electrical engineering company of the early-to-mid 20th century formerly known as British Westinghouse. Highly diversified, it was particularly well known for its industrial el ...
at their Dukinfield Works in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...
. The 001 Class locomotive was the backbone of mainline passenger and freight train services on the Irish railway network for forty years from 1955 until the mid-1990s when they were replaced by the new
201 Class.
Engines
Crossley
Initially they were fitted with eight-cylinder
two-stroke
A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being completed in one revolution of ...
,
port-controlled Crossley
Crossley, based in Manchester, United Kingdom, was a pioneering company in the production of internal combustion engines. Since 1988 it has been part of the Rolls-Royce Power Engineering group.
More than 100,000 Crossley oil and gas engines ...
engines. These were a
loop scavenge type, which utilised a patented principle that recycled the normally wasted
exhaust-pressure pulse to boost charge air in the cylinder. They produced at 625
rpm and could do . The original
sandboxes, which were used to improve traction with the rail, were removed after a few years.
Their Crossley engines proved to be notoriously unreliable from the start. Amongst a plethora of problems were:
* Unbalanced engines resulting in vibration-induced fuel pipe and water pipe fractures
* Cylinder defects
* Excessive water temperature causing shutdowns
There were also problems with generator and motor
flashovers.
Similar problems were also encountered on the Crossley-engined
Western Australian Government Railways X Class and
British Rail Class 28
The British Rail Class 28 ( Metro-Vick Type 2) diesel-electric locomotives, known variously as 'Metrovicks', 'Crossleys' or 'Co-Bos', were built under the Pilot Scheme for diesel locomotives as part of the British Railways 1955 Modernisation P ...
locomotives.
EMD
These problems were tackled between 1968 and 1971 through the progressive re-engining of the entire class with a 12-cylinder
EMD 645E engine (a similar process was implemented for the original
201 Class). However, this power output stressed the ability of the original cooling and transmission systems and the engine output was reduced to for improved reliability. When built, these locomotives were originally numbered A1 to A60, and as locomotives were re-engined, they had the suffix 'R' added to their number. From 1972, the prefix letters were dropped and the locomotives were renumbered 001 to 060.
Accidents and incidents
*On Thursday 5 December 1963, locomotive A17 was hauling a passenger train from
Westland Row to
Westport when it broke down at
Mullingar,
County Westmeath
"Noble above nobility"
, image_map = Island of Ireland location map Westmeath.svg
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Ireland
, subdivision_type1 = Province
, subdivision_name1 =
, subdivis ...
. Locomotive A42 was sent to its assistance, but collided with the stationary train at a speed of . Both locomotives were damaged, 16 people were injured.
Preservation
Four A class locomotives survived into preservation, the details of which are outlined in the table below:
File:A-Class015.JPG, A15
File:A39r, Downpatrick.JPG, A39R
Model
The A Class is available as a 4mm scale (OO) ready-to-run (RTR) model from Irish Railway Models. Announced in October 2018, it was released in October 2021. In the past it has been made as a
00 gauge
OO gauge or OO scale (also, 00 gauge and 00 scale) is the most popular standard-gauge model railway standard in the United Kingdom, outside of which it is virtually unknown. OO gauge is one of several 4 mm-scale standards (4 mm to 1 foot, ...
kit by Silver Fox Models.
References
External links
Eiretrains - Irish Locomotives
{{EMD misc
Iarnród Éireann locomotives
Metropolitan-Vickers locomotives
Co-Co locomotives
Railway locomotives introduced in 1955
Diesel-electric locomotives of Ireland