English Electric Type Fours

Two hundred EE4s were built between 1958 and 1962, most of them at the Vulcan Foundry, Newton-le-Willows. Later classified as Class 40s, they lasted on BR until 1985. Seven examples have survived into preservation.

I think I really despised these things at the time. They were the embodiment of our antipathy towards the process of dieselisation. Deep down, I’m not sure I’ve ever forgiven them for being the direct replacements for the Princess and Coronation classes. It was so disheartening. Like most classic traction, I now appreciate them a little more than I used to, but in all honesty, they don’t get anywhere near Warships, Westerns and Deltics for looks, and they remain about as boring as a diesel locomotive can get.

I realise that there is not necessarily much logic to this. It seems silly, on the face of it, to use feelings and emotions to discriminate between constructed objects of substantial bulk - pitting one large piece of metal against another - though aesthetics obviously comes into it. The classic traction folk also sometimes refer to steam locos in derogatory fashion, as “kettles”. We were much ruder about diesels than that. This is all tied up with adolescence and identity. Economics, efficiency and modernisation were no concern of ours, as youngsters. If we’d been born 10 years after, we’d be enthusing about diesels in the same way – if we had been enthusing about trains at all by then. Steam was our “growing up” era and it has remained pivotal ever since and provided us with so much to help keep us happy through the subsequent decades.

I’m grateful to John Dyer for not being so dismissive of the EE4 as I was. He photographed D206 at King’s Cross in August 1959, D210 at Euston in the same month, D287 at Crewe in July 1963, D309 on Neville Hill sheds on 12/8/62, D320 and D337 at Crewe on 22/5/61 and D375 also at Crewe in July 1963.