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 t ...

. 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 Thermodynamic power cycle, power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being comple ...

, 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 Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...

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 The X Class were a class of diesel locomotive built by Beyer, Peacock and Company, Beyer, Peacock & Company and Metropolitan-Vickers, Bowesfield Works, Stockton-on-Tees for the Western Australian Government Railways between 1954 and 1956. Cons ...

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 645 The EMD 645 is a family of diesel engines that was designed and manufactured by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors. While the 645 series was intended primarily for locomotive, marine and stationary engine use, one 16-cylinder versio ...

E 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 Westland Row is a street on the Southside of Dublin, Ireland. Location The street runs along the east end of Trinity College Dublin. History Westland Row first appears on maps in 1776. It was originally known as Westlands after Willi ...

to Westport when it broke down at

Mullingar Mullingar ( ; ) is the county town of County Westmeath in Ireland. It is the third most populous town in the Midland Region, with a population of 20,928 in the 2016 census. The Counties of Meath and Westmeath Act 1543 proclaimed Westmeat ...

County Westmeath "Noble above nobility" , image_map = Island of Ireland location map Westmeath.svg , subdivision_type = Sovereign state, Country , subdivision_name = Republic of Ireland, Ireland , subdivision_type1 = Provinces o ...

. 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, A39_R

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 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