The British Diesel that loves to go Backwards

The Class 20 had only one cab, a massive nose that blocked the driver's view of the line, and outlived nearly every modern locomotive built to replace it.

Built by English Electric starting in 1957, D8000 launched a fleet of 228 Type 1 diesels that became British Rail workhorses. Because driving bonnet-first was a visibility nightmare, crews ran them coupled nose-to-nose in pairs, with a cab pointing out at each end and the lead locomotive running in reverse. The distinct chugging exhaust note quickly earned them the nickname "Choppers."

Thumbnail Credit: By Dan Sellers - , CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11016139

When British Railways attempted to replace them in the 1960s with the centre-cab Class 17 Clayton, the replacement engines proved notoriously unreliable, prompting BR to scrap the Claytons early and simply buy a hundred more Class 20s. Over the next seven decades, the 20s hauled MGR coal, pulled summer holiday specials to Skegness, helped build the Channel Tunnel and HS1, delivered London Underground stock, ran nuclear flask trains, and even had a cameo in James Bond's GoldenEye.

This is the full story of Britain's most durable diesel in 100 seconds.

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