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British Railway's experimental Electric locomotive E2001 is seen standing on one of the sidings at Rugby shed on 29th March 1965. The locomotive had originally built as No 18100, a prototype main line gas turbine-electric locomotive for British Railways in 1951 by the Metropolitan Vickers Company of Manchester, before being converted in 1958 as an electric locomotive. In its gas turbine-electric locomotive form it had been ordered by the GWR in the 1940s, but construction was delayed due to the Second World War. As No 18100 it spent its working life on the Western Region of British Railways operating express passenger services from London Paddington station. In early 1958 it was withdrawn from operation and was stored at Swindon Works for a short period before it was returned to Metropolitan Vickers for conversion as a prototype 25 kV AC electric locomotive. When first built it was originally numbered E1000 being renumbered E2001 in 1959 and was then later given the TOPS classification of class 80. Greg Martin writes, back in the mid-1960s I went to Rugby and walked through the carriage shed without being thrown out and went over to the Research Department's locomotive testing station. I was surprised to see through the gap between the doors that E2001 was inside. The wagon next to E2001 in your photo is a fairly rare type. These were built for the Ministry of War Transport and shipped new from Southampton containing a small amount of coal to France. They were only partly loaded because the dockside cranes could not lift them if they were fully loaded. In France the wagons were repainted into SNCF colours and served there for about a decade. Around 1960 they returned to Britain and were painted in BR colours. One is preserved at the NRM'.
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