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: lnwrrm2448

English Electric Type 2 700 HP experimental gas turbine locomotive GT3 with a test load of two locomotives and oil tank carrying turbine fuel oil. The locomotive was designed at English Electric's offices in Whetstone, Leicester. Gas Turbine No 3 was a prototype mainline gas turbine locomotive built in 1961 at the Vulcan Foundry in Newton-le-Willows. It was designed by Vulcan engineer JOP Hughes in a project that started in the early 1950s. Externally it resembled a steam tender locomotive, although, in the case of GT3, the tender carried diesel fuel. It was of 4-6-0 wheel arrangement resembling a BR standard class 5 steam locomotive chassis and was fitted with an EM27L gas turbine of 2700hp, but the chassis itself was a strengthened structure to cope with the torque of the turbine. It had a maximum speed of 90mph, weighed 123½ tons, and was painted in a red oxide livery. It was tested at the Rugby test centre and then on the former Great Central Main Line around Leicester and also the West Coast Main Line around the Shap incline.

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