h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I first became aware of the Deltics as a kid camping with the School
near Plawsworth viaduct Durham city in 1974.All night long this strange droning and bellowing could be heard from the ECML.After i had got home i read a book about the Deltics,which i at first mistook
for the boundless class thirty sevens which went through our Town to
the various coal mines up the coast.Then in 1975 me and two school mates went to York for a day out.Stood on Darlington station i watched the express aproach the platform at [what i thought]astonishing speed.When the Loco came under the roof train shed it was
a Deltic and the engine noises i had heard before all came back.Meld
55003 was stood there with our train to York.On pulling away the rapid pick up of speed which i didn't think possible with a Train,metal wheels on metal track etc.I swear it was nearly as fast as my old Dad used to pull away from roundabouts [quick for a rail engine].Then we were on the four track race track section around Northallerton and Thirsk we flew through these stations and on to York.A day i'll never forget eventually i was hauled by all the Deltics having only one breakdown 55011 pegged out heading south from
Newcastle on Saturday.When St Paddy and Nimbus were withdrawn i had lost my interest in railways though not the Deltics.I was very shocked to hear of their withdrawl and as Nimbus was my favourite.I went out and started getting them for haulage again,although i missed
the Deltic Scotsman as i was saddened to much by their demise.I still
have my memories like 55016 Gordon Highlander flying past Darlington
in 1976 with her headcode panels yellow and in ex works condition.The
sound she made as she bypassed the station was magnificent.Thank you
Deltics and English Electric for making my formative years full of magnificance and happyness.I still miss you though nostalgia now is my main drug of choice.I didn't know how lucky i was back then,but who ever does???.

If you think the locomotives are something you should hear the fast patrol boats, especially the 3-shaft, 3-Deltic 10,000 horse-power Japanese PTs!

We are so lucky to have been able to experience this brief time in world history, when by pure luck and co-incidence some great engineering minds came together to create this masterpiece of motive power. It will most likely never happen again.
Its roots lie in Germany, the bosom of engine, and in this case diesel engine, invention, via Diesel himself and also Ochelhauser, the opposed-piston cycle inventor and out of the great Junkers works in Dessau, the birth-place of multi-crankshaft engines in the 1920s.
It started with the twin-crank 6-cylinder JuMo (Junkers Motorenbau) 204, then 205, 207 and 211 to the four-crank 24-cyl. diamond-form 223 and 224. 205s and 207s were used in Junkers Ju 86K and 86P military aircraft and also Deutsche Luft Hansa commercial aeroplanes, but reliability and vibration were problems which needed solving. The Model 223 diamond-24 was built and run, and triangles were not excluded from development, but the firm was unable in the time available to make the delta-form work. Its production capacity was needed for the German war effort, namely its aeroplaners and conventional, more reliable, 4-stroke petrol engines and after the war it was left to the Admiralty and English Electric via its subsidiary D.Napier & Son to "take-up the cudgels" for the
3-crankshaft engine form and through participation in an Admiralty committee set-up in 1944 the unique "Deltic" was born.
Lots of cylinders, 2-stroke, opposed pistons and a diesel, what more could anybody want?

Here's to the world's greatest "noise generators" - pour fuel in, get noise out!