British Rail Class 40

The British Rail Class 40 is a type of railway diesel-electric locomotive. A total of 200 were built by English Electric between 1958 and 1962 and numbered D200 to D399. The design grew out of earlier English Electric diesel work, including the LMS prototypes 10000 and 10001 and the Southern Region locomotive 10203, whose 16SVT engine, developing 2,000 bhp, and bogie design were used almost unchanged on the first ten production locomotives. The first, D200, was delivered to Stratford Works on 14 March 1958 and made its passenger debut on an express from London Liverpool Street to Norwich on 18 April 1958. Most were built at Vulcan Foundry, with one batch of twenty, D305 to D324, coming from Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns at Darlington. Overtaken on the top duties by more powerful locomotives such as the Deltics, the class moved to secondary passenger and freight work, and the final locomotives ended regular service in 1985. They were commonly known as Whistlers because of the noise of their turbochargers.