A Clayton diesel no.D8590 with a southbound freight taken at Jacksons Bakery which used to be in Yarm Road between Stockton and Eaglescliffe, 18 July 1964.
Photograph and details courtesy of Garth McLean.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Two 450 hp engines drove a single generator which supplied power to four traction motors. The design was notably unsuccessful, with many problems. Despite this over 100 were built with no prototype built or tested. Lives tended to be short only around five years in some cases and the whole episode was a very expensive waste of money.
The August 2017 issue of Modern Railways includes an article on engines which should be included in a Museum of Failures. The Clayton Class 17 diesel are in this “virtual museum” as a bright idea that did not work, partly because the two Paxman 450hp were very unreliable. The locomotive had been intended for secondary line passenger services, as well as marshalling yard shunting. By the time better engines from Rolls Royce had been installed this sort of traffic was dead.
Spent many happy Saturday mornings at the foot crossing in view, watching trains and generally larking about without a care in the world during the summer. We would come across what we called the ‘six fields’ from grange field estate through Hartburn village past where the post office used to be away to the left of the picture. Great times in the early sixties!
Myself and brother both worked at Jacksons bakery in 1969. We delivered bread, cakes, bacon and pies to all the surrounding estates in Stockton, Middlesbrough, Darlington, Redcar and Margie and Saltburn. We drove the “The Daisy Vans” and more often than not they frequently broke down and you ended up with soggy fresh cream cakes in the summer. Plus driving down rough dirt roads to many farms, several cakes ended up stuck to the roof. Wednesday was our mid week day off and we all used to meet up at several pubs in town as they were open all day then due to the markets etc, a brilliant bunch of people to work with and many happy days.
Picture was taken looking North, with the train on the up Stockton and Darlington line, the down next to it, the two lines to the left are the Leeds, Northern lines, the up and down Stockton and Darlington lines were lifted in the early 80′ and a junction installed just behind the brake van, known as Stockton Cut Junction.
Does anyone know how the drive to the wheels was arranged? Did the two engines go into one gearbox with a common output shaft, or was it effectively two separate engine/gearbox/wheels combinations?
These locos are diesel-electric; the diesel motors were attached to a generator which powered four traction motors.