Way back in the mists of time, post-nationalisation of Britain's railways, British Rail was trying out a truly vast range of new diesel and electric locomotive designs. The Western Region (formerly Great Western Railway, or GWR) went their own way as one might expect from the ex-GWR, and instead of electric transmission for their main-line locomotives they chose another system that had worked well on the continent, notably in Germany. Their Warship class locos were to some extent based on the German V200/0 loco and shared that beast's hydraulic transmission. Later, they designed the more powerful Western class loco, their Class 52, based again on a German design, this time the Krauss-Maffei ML3000.
Eventually Western Region was brought into line with the rest of British Rail and switched over to electric transmission main-line locos; and all the diesel-hydraulics (Hymeks, Warships and Westerns) were scrapped apart from a few that were bought by Preservation Societies. One of the preserved Class 52s, D1062 Western Courier, is pictured here.
In those days, while these engines were being withdrawn from service and sent off to the breaker's yard for scrap material, I joined the Western Locomotive Association and bought shares in the locomotives they were able to rescue from the cutter's torch and restore to working order.
The Westerns, like the Warships, were numbered in BR's original diesel serial number system, before the TOPS class-plus-number system took over: Warships were in the D800 range, and the 74 Westerns were numbered from D1000 to D1073. No doubt they later appeared on TOPS as 52 001 to 52 074, but the locos themselves never had the new numbering applied to their bodywork. The complete list of Western-class locomotives is given below, taken from information I have gathered from personal sightings and other sources.
