Great video but, apart from you turning the key, I didn't have clue what you were doing. Perhaps some captions to explain would have made it an even greater piece of film.
On the old Westerns class 52 you had to fire up the fuel preheater boiler first as well before they would even THINK about starting! But thanks to this they had AWESOME cold start abilities. LOVELY sound next to that EE engine!!
That red co2 discharge nozzle @ 2:12, along with the 850 to 900 PSI co2 cylinders are a great feature to these magnificent locomotives. Props to British Rail on the fire protection for this class 40. 😎
Looking at this there is some legwork to do before you can get the thing to start on the these heritage first generation UK diesels. They got it so much easier these days with modern traction.
Interesting to observe the start up procedure, I'm guessing you're connecting the battery circuit, switching on the fuel pump, the other switches are possibly minor oil or air injector switches. Looks interesting. I drove a class 37 at ELR last month that waz an i teresting learning experience tapping up and amping down while watching tracks, points and signals, the loco was already set up to go.
+Paul Lambert Nice, this machine is really different from the US locos. Is there a traction motor blower and a vacuum exhauster on the other nose as well ?
When he put the Driver's key into the back of the controller and moved the master controller from off to eo the whine you could hear is the oil priming pump. There is an electric fuel pump to raise fuel from the main tank to a header also. If the oil is not up to pressure (I forget) the start contactor will not close.
The difference being, that Loco was already in running order. The weak link was the Idiot they hired to Drive it, he didn`t know that you needed a Master Key and that the AWS isolating handle had been pulled out. A simple task for a man who was properly trained.
i disagree. These were the simplest mainline diesels I ever worked on. You couldn't really leave anything off compared to what is there already. But turbo gallery oil drains?? Less smoke, less chance of surging. But where's the fun in that!
They usually did. 40s were still around when I started on the footplate in 1980. Remember the last 40 I was on, didn't get a mile when it failed and had to be hauled back to the yard!
In BR days the driver would put the battery switch in and switch in the light switch then put the key in Move the reverser engine only then wait 30 seconds then push the button
+CreRay they are turbo drain cocks. Basically they are there to drain any rain that accumulates in the turbos via the exhaust. Close them before starting the engine, then reopen at the end of the days running
Paul Lambert Thanks, I was already guessing that's what they are. In a few video's of an English Electric starting up a pronounced hissing sound occurs after starting up, I guess one of them was left open then?
@@Colonel_Blimp oh yes, it's true. Then again we British have always been slightly behind the game. When the Datsun 240 came out, all we could offer in competition was the Morris Oxford.
@@dannycarter1966 well as a retired driver qualified on both EE and Mitsubishi diesels I dispute your contention that that pushing a button will start a late 60's Japanese unit. Fortunately my railway learnt the error of its ways and went solid Yankee.
You apparently have absolutely no idea how involved cold starting the average diesel locomotive is. Even today there is no "push a button and it goes" because there are things like battery disconnectors, isolation switches and breakers involved in getting one running from a cold shutdown. What you see here is why locomotives are left idling so often. Because cold starting takes several minutes and can, in fact, fail to work even on an engine that was running only minutes ago. This is not your car. It doesn't turn on with a button. And neither did the ones in Japan.
Why does nobody ever explain what starts the thing ? Electric ??? Air ???? Power of thought ?? 😅. As like the class 37. They turn over for a long time from cold ".
