N Metro-Vick Co-Bo Class 28

BR pilot scheme 1200bhp type 2 design built to test a Crossley 2-stroke diesel engine in comparison to the 4-stroke types used in all other design submissions. The highly successful EMD engines widely used in the US and now found in class 59/66/67 locomotives being a 2-stroke design. To spread the locomotives weight to meet British Railways axle loading specifications an unusual 5-axle layout of one 3 axle C and one 2 axle B trucks was used, with motors driving all 5 axles (indicated by the o suffix). Hence the Co-Bo designation. Initially deployed on the Condor express container freight service reliability issues soon saw the class redeployed to less onerous duties where their failures would cause less trouble. One locomotive is preserved for future generations to discover the quirky but ill-fated Co-Bo.

Pre-production samples expected March 2022
Detailed N gauge model of Metropolitan-Vickers Crossley engined Co-Bo diesel locomotive number D5713 finished in locomotive green livery with small yellow warning panels. Post 1961 rebuild condition with flat windscreens.
DCC Ready with socket for Next18 decoder.
£107.95
MRP £119.95
Warehouse: 1
Fast delivery from Warehouse.
(Product Ref 8857)
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Detailed N gauge model of Metropolitan-Vickers Crossley engined Co-Bo diesel locomotive number D5707 finished in locomotive green livery with full yellow ends. Post 1961 rebuild condition with flat windscreens.
DCC Ready with socket for Next18 decoder.
£107.95
MRP £119.95
Warehouse: 1
Fast delivery from Warehouse.
(Product Ref 163)
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Detailed N gauge model of Metropolitan-Vickers Crossley engined Co-Bo diesel locomotive number D5705 finished in locomotive green livery with small yellow warning panels. Post 1961 rebuild condition with flat windscreens. This is the sole remaining preserved example of the class.
DCC Ready with socket for Next18 decoder.
£107.95
MRP £119.95
Warehouse: 2
Gloucester: 1
Fast delivery from Warehouse.
(Product Ref 23698)
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Detailed N gauge model of Metropolitan-Vickers Crossley engined Co-Bo diesel locomotive number D5701, finished in rail blue livery with full yellow ends and BR double arrow logos. D5701 is believed to have been the only class 28 to have been painted into the rail blue livery.
DCC Ready with socket for Next18 decoder.
£107.95
MRP £119.95
Warehouse: 1
Gloucester: 1
Fast delivery from Warehouse.
(Product Ref 9361)
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Detailed N gauge model of Metropolitan-Vickers Crossley engined Co-Bo diesel locomotive number D5711 finished in locomotive green livery with small yellow warning panels. Post 1961 rebuild condition with flat windscreens.
DCC Ready with socket for Next18 decoder.
£107.95
MRP £119.95

Bristol: 1
Delivery from stores takes a few days longer!
(Product Ref 20985)
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The Crossley engines did not prove anything like as successful as the EMD 567, developing serious stress crack issues beyond anticipated 'teething troubles'. Despite a rebuilding in 1961 to resolve most of the issues this small class of non-standard and less than successful locomotives would have only a short future. Demoted from the Condor express container trains the class worked out their time around the Cumbrian coast routes, until enough DMUs and Sulzer or EE engined locomotives became available to displace them.
Typical of these quirky locomotives after withdraw from revenue service one of them, D5705, found a temporary home with British Railways Research Division who were commencing a long-term project to investigate wheel-rail interactions. This interaction between surfaces in contact is known as Tribology and having assembled a train to monitor and record the results of applying varying braking forces needed a locomotive to haul the 'Tribology Test Train'. Although replaced by a class 24 locomotive D5705 was then adapted as a carriage pre-heating generator unit to supply electrically heated coaching stock in carrage sidings. By the early 1980s as TDB968006 the ex-locomotive was out of use at Bristol Bath Road shed and occasionally visible at the back of one of the outside tracks.
In 1985 D5705 was purchased for preservation, with restoration progressing slowly at the East Lancs Railway.