British Rail Class 33

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D6547 in original green livery without yellow warning panels, 1963.

Class 33/0 33 025 Sultan at Weymouth.

33/1 33 119 negotiates the backstreets of Weymouth on its way to the quay during August 1981. Note the push-pull cables on the cab front.

Class 33/2 No. 33 208, one of those built with narrower bodies at Dorchester with a nuclear flask train.

West Coast Railway Company 33/2 33207 at Caerphilly on 4 December 2005.

The British Rail Class 33 also known as the BRCW Type 3 or Crompton is a class of Bo-Bo diesel locomotives built for the Southern Region between 1960 and 1962. A total of 98 was built by BRCW, and they were called "Cromptons" after the Crompton-Parkinson electrical equipment installed in them. They began service on the South-Eastern Division of the Southern Region but rapidly spread across the whole Region, and many were used much further afield. They were built with the ability only to supply the new type of electrical train heating, not the more traditional steam heating which most passenger carriages then used, so in the early years their use as winter-time passenger locomotives was restricted to the more modern passenger carriages.

There were three different types:

• 86 were built as standard locomotives, and the remainder of this type which were not converted (see below) - 67 in total - had numbers beginning 33/0;

• 19 of the standard type were subsequently fitted with push-pull equipment to handle trains between Bournemouth and Weymouth (trains operating on this line started at London Waterloo where they were powered by third-rail electric traction via Winchester and Southampton until Bournemouth. They usually consisted of 12 carriages divided into three blocks of four carriages - one of these blocks would be powerful 3200hp 4 REP electric multiple unit, while the leading blocks would be "trailling" - unpowered - 4TC multiple units. At Bournemouth, the block at the rear would be detached, and a modified Class 33 diesel-powered locomotive would be attached to the front unpowered carriages so that they could continue over the non-electrified tracks to Poole and Weymouth. The electric unit remained at Bournemouth or returned back to London with another train. Meanwhile the unpowered carriages, when returning from Weymouth to Bournemouth, had the locomotive remain at the rear, pushing them, and a separate driving compartment at what was then the front of the first carriage was used to control the train). These modified push-pull locomotives were given numbers starting 33/1;

• 12 were built with bodies which were 7 inches narrower for the Hastings Line (their numbers begin 33/2). These locomotives were smaller in order to fit the reduced gauge on that line.

Most of these locomotives have now been withdrawn from active duty, though some are still in service with Fragonset, Direct Rail Services and on preserved railways.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: British Rail Class 33

• South East Locomotive Group - owners of 33063 & 33065
• http://www.semg.org.uk/diesel/class33_01.html
• http://members.tripod.com/~Class33/
• http://rail.felgall.com/c33.htm
• Spa Valley Railway - Operating 33063 & 33065
• Preserved Class 33 Website

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