Classics of Modern
Design
Our new series highlights some of the things we like most in modern design. This month, we pinch one of Jonathan Glancey's subjects from 'Everyday Classics' in The Guardian, the series which inspired our own.
The Class 47 diesel-electric locomotive
"Graceful, handsome and still making tracks across the country, the Class 47 diesel-electric was the first truly modern locomotive".
Link to Jonathan Glancey's original article:
click here
Also in Classics of Modern Design
Jucker-Wagenfeld Bauhaus lamp
Our new series highlights some of the things we like most in modern design. This month, we pinch one of Jonathan Glancey's subjects from 'Everyday Classics' in The Guardian, the series which inspired our own.
The Class 47 diesel-electric locomotive
"Graceful, handsome and still making tracks across the country, the Class 47 diesel-electric was the first truly modern locomotive".
Link to Jonathan Glancey's original article:
click here
Also in Classics of Modern Design
Jucker-Wagenfeld Bauhaus lamp
Date: 1962
Follow the link above to Jonathan Glancey's article in The Guardian for an excellent account of the history of this locomotive and why it has a special place in industrial design history. The short version is that, in the 1950s, when British Railways decided to embark on a wholesale transition from steam to diesel power, there was no firm idea of what a modern train or locomotive should look like. Early diesels in the 1950s were often based on US designs, with a large awkward-looking 'nose' at either end and ugly air vents and grilles covering their bodysides.
British Railways were keen to project a more modern, sleek image to its customers through its stations and trains as competition from road and air intensified in the 1960s. For rolling stock, it engaged in a more enlightened approach for the second wave of new diesels. Other than some prototypes, in which BR's Design Panel experimented with a new look, Class 47 was the first mass production locomotive to adopt a truly modern approach. The result was a sleek, elegant locomotive devoid of the fussiness of earlier designs, making a virtue of its 'strong box' bodywork and projecting power with grace - as Glancey describes it, "the first truly modern locomotive'.
512 locomotives were build, making Class 47 the ubiquitous modern face of BR traction from the 1960s to the 1990s. The class was steadily withdrawn from the late 1990s onward, though a handful survive. Many others are preserved and - as a testament to the success of the body design - several have been re-engined and thoroughly reequipped as the new Class 57.
Sources:
Jonathan Glancey: 'Classics of everyday design, no 38', The Guardian, 28 December 2007.
T.J. Hill: Class 47 Diesels (Ian Allan, 1979)
H. C. B. Rogers: Transition from Steam (Ian Allan, 1978)