British Rail Class 40 - Production

Production

Following the mixed success of the prototypes, another 190 locomotives were ordered by British Railways, and were numbered from D210 to D399. All were built at Vulcan Foundry, except a batch of twenty (Nos. D305–D324) which were built at Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns factory in Darlington. All the locomotives were painted in the British Railways diesel green livery, and the final locomotive, D399, was delivered in September 1962.

Batches of the class were built with significant design differences, due to changes in railway working practices. The first 125 locomotives, Nos. D200–D324, were built with steam-age 'disc' headcode markers, which BR used to identify services. Later, it was decided that locomotives should display the four character train reporting number (or headcode) of the service they were hauling, and Nos. D325–D344 were built with 'split' headcode boxes, which displayed two characters either side of the locomotive's central gangway doors. Another policy decision led to the discontinuing of the gangway doors (which enabled train crew to move between two or three locomotives in multiple). The remaining locomotives, Nos. D345–D399, carried a central four-character headcode box. In 1965, seven of the first batch of locomotives, Nos. D260–D266, which were based in Scotland, were converted to the central headcode design.

From 1973, locomotives were renumbered to suit the TOPS computer operating system, and became known as 'Class 40'. Locomotives D201 to D399 were renumbered in sequence into the range 40 001 to 40 199. The first built locomotive, D200, was renumbered 40 122, which was vacant due to the scrapping of D322 after an accident on 16 May 1966. It was withdrawn September 1967.