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The British Rail Class 28 (Metropolitan-Vickers Type 2) diesel locomotives, or 'Metrovicks' as they were popularly known, were built as part of the British Railways 1955 Modernisation Plan. The locomotives had a Co-Bo wheel arrangement (a 6-wheel bogie at one end, a 4-wheel bogie at the other) – unique in British Railways practice though not uncommon in other countries, notably Japan. This affected their route availability, due to the different axle loading at each end of the loco, and made maintenance more complicated. The maximum tractive effort of was unusually high for a Type 2 locomotive but, as there were five (not four) driving axles, the risk of wheelslip was minimal. ==Engine== With low-speed Crossley 8-cylinder HST Vee8 two stroke engines, they represented an experiment in two stroke versus four stroke engines for diesel-electric traction. The engines had exhaust pulse pressure charging and developed 1,200 horsepower (895 kW) at 625 rpm. There were no valves, and inlet and exhaust were via ports in the cylinder walls. The same engine was originally fitted in the Irish A Class and the Western Australian Government Railways X class Almost from the beginning the Metrovick's Crossley engines were problematic.〔(【引用サイトリンク】section=Different Strokes )〕 They suffered frequent failures and by 1961 the entire class was handed back to the manufacturer for remedial work on the engines and to cure problems with cab windows falling out while running. The cab windows were modified such that instead of wrapping round to the side the outer front windows were replaced by a flat piece of glass facing the front only. The engines were also noisy and prone to unacceptable levels of smoky exhaust fumes. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「British Rail Class 28」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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