LMS Route: Rugby to Wolverhampton
LMS Route: Rugby to Leamington
LMS Route: Rugby to Tamworth
LMS Route: Rugby to Leicester
LMS Route: Rugby to Market Harborough

Rugby Station: lnwrrm2521

A pair of unidentified English Electric Type 1 diesel locomotives are seen heading an up freight train beneath the GC bridge. These locomotives belong to a class of two hundred and twenty-eight diesel-electric locomotive which were built by English Electric Vulcan Foundry (135) and Robert Stephenson & Hawthorn Ltd (93) between 1957 and 1968. The locomotives were originally numbered D8000–D8199 and D8300–D8327. Designed around relatively basic technology, the 73-tonne locomotives produced 1,000 horsepower and could operate up to 75 mph. Designed to work light mixed freight traffic, they had no train heating facilities. Locomotives D8000 to D8127 were fitted with disc indicators in the style of the steam lamp headcodes. When headcodes were introduced in 1960 the design was changed to incorporate headcode boxes. Whilst older locomotives were not retrofitted with headcode boxes, a few of the earlier batch acquired headcode boxes as a result of repairs. Unusually for British designs, the locomotive had a single cab. This caused serious problems with visibility when travelling nose first, though in these circumstances the driver's view is comparable to that on the steam locomotives that the Type 1's, later classified under TOPs as Class 20s, replaced. They are known by railway enthusiasts as "Choppers", a name derived from the distinctive beat that the engine produces under load which resembles the sound of a helicopter.

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