THE HISTORY OF 'THE TWINS'

British Railways Class 16/1  (Partly taken from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License)    

British Railways Class D16/1, numbers 10000 and 10001 were the first mainline diesel locomotives in Great Britain. They were built by the London Midland and Scottish Railway at it Derby Works, using the EE16SVT 1,600hp diesel engine with electric transmission, in association with English Electric and the Vulcan Foundry with whom the LMS had had a long working relationship.    

LMS 10000 was officially presented to the press at Derby Works on the 8th of December 1947, having emerged from the Works on the 5th for the first time.      

The official handing-over ceremony of No 10000 occurred at Euston on December 18th 1947 at which Sir George Nelson, Chairman and Managing Director of the English Electric Co, and Sir Robert Burrows, Chairman of the LMS, spoke of 'the importance of the experiment'.       

The timing of the hand-over (just prior to nationalisation) was chosen with some deliberation as the LMS was keen to see that their new diesel locomotive - being entirely LMS in origin - should bear the company's insignia in traffic. The former CME of the LMS, Sir William Stanier, was also at the handing-over ceremony, to attend the unveiling of his nameplates on brand new, penultimate pacific No 6256. (See picture below.)      

After several weeks of proving trials, 10000 entered service on the Midland route in February 1948. The twins operated over a number of routes out of St Pancras or Euston but their low power outputs meant they were not ideal for heavily loaded or express services unless operated as a pair.      

The raised LMS letters were removed in March 1951, and the black and silver livery eventually gave way to BR Brunswick green in Sept 1956. When 10001 appeared in July 1948 it had British Railways livery.       

In March 1953 they were both transferred to the Southern Region of British Railways to allow direct comparison to be made between them and the SR's 10201, 10202 and 10203 and remained there until spring 1955. They (and the SR locomotives) were sent to Derby where they were overhauled and received green livery and then ran side by side on London Midland Region duties. Trials of both types proved interesting, with the Southern Region locomotives developing into the English Electric Type 4 design for British Railways (later British Railways Class 40).    

Both locos were allocated to Willesden. 10000 was withdrawn in 1963 and scrapped at Cashmores, Great Bridge, in by April 1968. 

10001 was withdrawn in 1966 and scrapped at Cox & Danks, North Acton, by December 1968.