LOCOMOTIVE HISTORY
The quest for definitive knowledge
The RCTS has launched an online database tool that provides detailed reference material about every diesel, electric or gas turbine locomotive that has ever run on the national network.
RAIL enthusiasts have long held an interest in locomotive allocations, dating back at least to the time when Ian Allan started to produce its ABC series of loco numbers, and spotters became curious to know where to find the missing few to complete a class. That need was soon answered with the Locoshed series of books listing engine shed allocations, these being supplemented by monthly updates in the railway press. Steam loco fleets had been relatively stable, in terms of numbers and names carried, but things changed when diesel and electrics came along, as renumberings and name changes became frequent and at times complex.
Over the years, a number of books have been published giving various levels of information about historic allocation data, renumberings, namings and disposals, with the latter sometimes being different from one book to the next, especially with regard to the fate of the early diesel shunters, as these disappeared around the same time as many steam engines went for scrap. That said, a good number of early diesels ended up in a second life of industrial service, as the vast majority had only seen a few years of use by British Railways before withdrawal.
In more recent times, much of this information has also become available online, but spread across a vast array of sites, many catering for just one class. Since 1928, the Railway Correspondence & Travel Society (RCTS) has recorded and published details about locomotives in the Railway Observer (RO), but to establish an individual loco’s history would mean finding and wading through all of the relevant issues. The Society therefore decided to bring all of the non-steam information together in one place with an online database called Locodata.