British Rail 18100 was a prototype main line

gas turbine-electric locomotive A gas turbine locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a gas turbine. Several types of gas turbine locomotive have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving ...

built for

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

in 1951 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 ...

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 t ...

. It had, however, been ordered by the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

in the 1940s, but construction was delayed due to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. It spent its working life on the

Western Region of British Railways The Western Region was a region of British Railways from 1948. The region ceased to be an operating unit in its own right on completion of the "Organising for Quality" initiative on 6 April 1992. The Region consisted principally of ex- Great ...

, operating express passenger services from

Paddington station Paddington, also known as London Paddington, is a Central London railway terminus and London Underground station complex, located on Praed Street in the Paddington area. The site has been the London terminus of services provided by the Great We ...

, London.

Overview

It was of Co-Co

wheel arrangement In rail transport, a wheel arrangement or wheel configuration is a system of classifying the way in which wheels are distributed under a locomotive. Several notations exist to describe the wheel assemblies of a locomotive by type, position, and c ...

and its

gas turbine A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas generator or core) and are, in the directi ...

was rated at . It had a maximum speed of and weighed . It was painted in BR black livery, with a silver stripe around the middle of the body and silver numbers.

Technical details

The gas turbine was of a type which would now be called a

turboshaft A turboshaft engine is a form of gas turbine that is optimized to produce shaftpower rather than jet thrust. In concept, turboshaft engines are very similar to turbojets, with additional turbine expansion to extract heat energy from the exhaust ...

engine but it differed from modern

free-turbine turboshaft A free-turbine turboshaft is a form of turboshaft or turboprop gas turbine engine where the power is extracted from the exhaust stream of a gas turbine by an independent turbine, downstream of the gas turbine. The power turbine is not mechanically ...

engines in having only one turbine to drive both the compressor and the output shaft. It was based on aircraft practice and had six horizontal combustion chambers (spaced radially around the turbine shaft) and no

heat exchanger A heat exchanger is a system used to transfer heat between a source and a working fluid. Heat exchangers are used in both cooling and heating processes. The fluids may be separated by a solid wall to prevent mixing or they may be in direct contac ...

. The emphasis was on power, rather than economy, and the fuel consumption was high. It was designed to use aviation kerosene and was much more expensive to run than No. 18000, which used heavy

fuel oil Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum (crude oil). Such oils include distillates (the lighter fractions) and residues (the heavier fractions). Fuel oils include heavy fuel oil, marine fuel oil (MFO), bun ...

. The turbine drove, through

reduction gear A gear train is a mechanical system formed by mounting gears on a frame so the teeth of the gears engage. Gear teeth are designed to ensure the pitch circles of engaging gears roll on each other without slipping, providing a smooth transmission ...

ing: * three main generators * one auxiliary generator for battery charging * one exciter for the main generators Each main generator powered two

traction motor A traction motor is an electric motor used for propulsion of a vehicle, such as locomotives, electric vehicle, electric or hydrogen vehicles, elevators or electric multiple unit. Traction motors are used in electrically powered rail vehicles (ele ...

s. Unlike No. 18000, there was no auxiliary

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...

and the turbine was started by battery power, using the main generators as starter motors.

Comparison of 18000 and 18100

The following table gives a comparison between 18000 and 18100. There are some anomalies and these are described in the notes. Notes: # In 18000, output

horsepower Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are the ...

is 24% of total horsepower and in 18100, output horsepower is 33% of total horsepower. This suggests that 18100 had the higher

thermal efficiency In thermodynamics, the thermal efficiency (\eta_) is a dimensionless performance measure of a device that uses thermal energy, such as an internal combustion engine, steam turbine, steam engine, boiler, furnace, refrigerator, ACs etc. For a he ...

but, in practice, 18000 had the higher thermal efficiency. The horsepower figures should, therefore, be regarded with some scepticism. # Where electric transmission is used, the horsepower of the

s is usually 81% (i.e. 90% x 90%) that of the

prime mover Prime mover may refer to: Philosophy *Unmoved mover, a concept in Aristotle's writings Engineering * Prime mover (engine), motor, a machine that converts various other forms of energy (chemical, electrical, fluid pressure/flow, etc) into energy ...

. The figure for 18100 is therefore about right but the figure for 18000 looks anomalous.

Conversion

In early 1958 it was withdrawn from operation and was stored at

Swindon Works Swindon railway works was opened by the Great Western Railway in 1843 in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It served as the principal west England maintenance centre until closed in 1986. History In 1835 Parliament approved the construction of the ...

for a short period before it was returned to Metropolitan Vickers for conversion as a prototype

25 kV AC Railway electrification systems using alternating current (AC) at are used worldwide, especially for high-speed rail. It is usually supplied at the standard utility frequency (typically 50 or 60Hz), which simplifies traction substations. The d ...

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 gas ...

. As an electric locomotive, it was numbered E1000 (E2001 from 1959) and was given the

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 ...

classification of class 80.

Models

18100 is being made as a kit and ready-to-run in OO gauge by Silver Fox Models.

References

Sources

* * Sampson, H. (editor), ''The Dumpy Book of Railways of the World'', published by Sampson Low, London, date circa 1960 * Robertson, K. (1989). ''The Great Western Railway Gas Turbines'', published by Alan Sutton, *

External links

Rail Photo Archive - 18100

"Turbine Speeds British Trains"
''Popular Science'', April 1952, p. 131, mid-page {{British Rail Locomotives British Railways gas turbine locomotives Metropolitan-Vickers locomotives Co-Co locomotives Experimental locomotives Individual locomotives of Great Britain Railway locomotives introduced in 1951 Standard gauge locomotives of Great Britain Unique locomotives Scrapped locomotives