D8568
British Railways History

Built by Clayton Locomotives of Tutbury, D8568 was first constructed in the Autumn of 1963. This was carried out at Tutbury on the shop floor to ensure that when built up the loco all fitted together. Once this task was completed to satisfaction it was broken up into its component parts and sent by road to the International Combustion factory near Derby station. Here it was re-assembled again and mated to its frames and bogies. The Clayton locomotives were fitted with two 450hp engines built by Paxman, originally intended to have been fitted under the floors of DMU vehicles. As a result the locos had flat engines (where the pistons go side to side rather than up and down) and these were the only mainline diesel locomotives to operate using this type of engine.

D8568 is the sole survivor of a class of locomotives once 117 strong. The loco spent all of its working life in Scotland where it was delivered on the 16th January 1964, to Haymarket, near Edinburgh, moving to Polmadie, near Glasgow during September 1968. It remained operating at this depot until it was withdrawn from service on the 6th October 1971.

Having spent all its working life based in Scotland little is known by the group regarding the history or life of D8568. The class members based in Glasgow spent most of their lives working towards Ayr and Stranraer and via Dumfries to Carlisle. Edinburgh based locomotives worked traffic to and from Dundee in the North and to Carlisle via Hawick on the Waverley route. A number of early examples became out based at Carnforth during the late 1960's for banking duties, eliminating steam. The Beyer Peacock built examples (D8588-D8616) spent their early lives in the North-East of England around Newcastle before eventually moving North to Scotland.

Designated by British Railways as the standard Type 1 for the railway system, the Claytons were to have replaced the EE type 1 (later class 20), their centrally placed cab offered good all round visibility for drivers and was far superior to that of the single ended EE. However this was not to be and withdrawals of the Clayton began as early as 1968, when some members were just four years old!

October 1971 saw the majority of the class withdrawn and storage sites around central Scotland were littered with silent locomotives. An idea to convert some of the class to battery-electric locomotives for use on engineering work in tunnel sections did not materialise and this led to locomotives going to scrap merchants in Glasgow, Norwich and even Hull!

D8568
British Railways History Data

Works No:	Clayton 4365/U69
Delivered:	16/01/1964
To traffic:	16/01/1964
Withdrawn:	06/10/1971
Mileage	unknown
Final Working:	06/10/1971 - 8Z26 special, 00.30 Dalzell New Yard, Motherwell to Carlisle freight in tandem with 5100. Later class 24 No 24100. Our thanks to Andrew Chilcott and Phil Bullock for providing information relating to this

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Depots

Allocated:	16/01/1964		64B Haymarket
	28/09/1968		66A Polmadie

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Liveries

From	To		Description
---	---		Green - Half Yellow Warning Panel
---	Withdrawal		Green - Full Yellow Ends

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Works Visits

No Information Available

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As you can see, we have very little in the way of works information for D8568, if you have any information to add regarding BR history please get in touch

The story continues with D8568's Industrial and Preservation History