The NER Class ES1 (''Electric Shunting 1'') was a class of two
steeplecab electric locomotive
An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or on-board energy storage such as a battery or a supercapacitor. Locomotives with on-board fuelled prime movers, such as diesel engines or g ...
s commissioned by the
North Eastern Railway in 1902.
Both locomotives passed to the
London and North Eastern Railway in 1923 and then to
British Railways in 1948, but both were withdrawn before
TOPS
Total Operations Processing System (TOPS) is a computer system for managing railway locomotives and rolling stock, known for many years of use in the United Kingdom.
TOPS was originally developed between the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP), S ...
numbers could be applied.
History
The
North Eastern Railway was an enthusiastic and relatively early adopter of
electric traction
A railway electrification system supplies electric power to railway trains and trams without an on-board prime mover or local fuel supply.
Electric railways use either electric locomotives (hauling passengers or freight in separate cars), ele ...
for railways. As part of a 1902 scheme to electrify the suburban railway networks in the
Tyneside
Tyneside is a built-up area across the banks of the River Tyne in northern England. Residents of the area are commonly referred to as Geordies. The whole area is surrounded by the North East Green Belt.
The population of Tyneside as publishe ...
area, the NER's Chief Mechanical Engineer,
Wilson Worsdell
Wilson Worsdell (7 September 1850 – 14 April 1920) was an English locomotive engineer who was locomotive superintendent of the North Eastern Railway from 1890 to 1910. He was the younger brother of T.W. Worsdell. Wilson was born at Monks C ...
, also wished to electrify a ,
horseshoe-shaped freight line that went from Trafalgar Yard in
Manors to
Newcastle Quayside Yard. Passing through three
tunnel
A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...
s, this line had
gradients
In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p is the "direction and rate of fastest increase". If the grad ...
as steep as 1:27 (
3.70 %) and a number of sharp curves: it presented a formidable challenge for steam traction. Working conditions inside the tunnels were atrocious because the locomotives had to work exceptionally hard to manage the gradients which meant they produced vast quantities of choking fumes that could not disperse from the tunnels; the sparks they produced were a constant fire risk to the flammable packing materials in the yards. Electrification was the obvious answer.
The specification for new electric locomotives demanded that they be able to start a train of 150 tons on the steepest gradient, while on the level they were expected to be able to haul at . The end-to-end journey on the branch was to be completed in 4.5 minutes.
In 1900,
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...
(GE) and
Thomson-Houston
The Thomson-Houston Electric Company was a manufacturing company which was one of the precursors of the General Electric company.
History
The Thomson-Houston Electric Company was formed in 1882 in the United States when a group of Lynn, Massa ...
designed and built
steeplecab-type locomotive for the
Milan-Varese railway in Italy, electrified at 650
V DC using the
third rail
A third rail, also known as a live rail, electric rail or conductor rail, is a method of providing electric power to a railway locomotive or train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway ...
system. That railway opened in 1901, and the locomotive design proved successful. The North Eastern Railway's ES1s were derived from that American design, although they were designed from the start for both third rail and overhead operation: the Newcastle Quay branch used both systems—third rail in the tunnels, and
overhead lines on the rest of the line.
A contract was signed with the British Thomson-Houston company on 15 December 1902, for delivery by the end of the following year. British Thomson-Houston sub-contracted the mechanical parts to
Brush Electrical Engineering Co.
The electrified line was operational from 5 June 1905, and in the following year both locomotives performed exceptionally well. In 1906, they were fitted with electric heaters, the men having complained they were too cold on wintry mornings. A few years later, the
bow collector
A bow collector is one of the three main devices used on tramcars to transfer electric current from the wires above to the tram below. While once very common in continental Europe, it was replaced by the pantograph or the trolley pole, itself o ...
s originally fitted on their bonnets were removed and a
pantograph
A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line dr ...
installed on the roof instead. With few other changes, they remained in operation until the line was de-electrified and they were replaced with diesel locomotives on 29 February 1964.
The line was closed five years later.
Early photographs show the locomotives with "CLASS ELECTRIC 1" painted on the
bufferbeams, but this does not appear in official records. In common with other LNER electric locomotives, no classification was given to these locomotives until 4 October 1945, when Nos. 1 and 2 were classified ES1 (Electric Shunting 1). No. 1 exchanged numbers with
Class D3 steam locomotive No. 4075 on 30 September 1944, but after the steam locomotive was again renumbered (to no. 2000), the electric locomotive was able to resume its original number on 24 October 1944. On 14 June 1946, Nos. 1 and 2 were renumbered to 6480/1; and under
British Railways, they became Nos. 26500/1 in April 1948.
Preservation
From 1968, ES1 (number 26500 under British Rail's number scheme) was transferred to Leicester Railway Museum. After that closed, in 1977 it was taken into the National Collection of the
National Railway Museum
The National Railway Museum is a museum in York forming part of the Science Museum Group. The museum tells the story of rail transport in Britain and its impact on society. It is the home of the national collection of historically significant ...
, and is currently on display at
Locomotion
Locomotion means the act or ability of something to transport or move itself from place to place.
Locomotion may refer to:
Motion
* Motion (physics)
* Robot locomotion, of man-made devices
By environment
* Aquatic locomotion
* Flight
* Locomo ...
, Shildon.
See also
*
SNCF BB 1280, contemporary design, originally built for the
Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans
The ''Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans'' (PO) was an early French railway company.
It merged with the '' Chemins de fer du Midi'' to form the ''Chemins de fer de Paris à Orléans et du Midi'' (PO-Midi) in 1934. In 1938 the PO-Mid ...
, also deriving from GE design
Notes
Sources
The LNER Encyclopaedia on the ES 1*
*
{{British Rail Locomotives
Electric Newcastle
ES1
Bo-Bo locomotives
Railway locomotives introduced in 1903
600 V DC locomotives
ES1
Standard gauge locomotives of Great Britain
Steeplecab locomotives