The BTH & North British Type 1 Bo-Bo Diesel-Electric Locomotives – British Railways Classes 15 & 16

By Anthony P Sayer

Published by Pen and Sword Transport www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

260mm x 250mm size, 350 pages, B&W/colour, hardback. £40.00

THERE is a reason for the heftylooking price tag on this book. Not only is it beautifully printed on topquality paper, as is standard for Pen and Sword, but it is a volume that has been meticulously researched and expansively presented.

As with other titles in the Diesel & Electric Locomotive Portfolios series, this book presents a totally comprehensive account of the relatively short-lived BR diesel-electrics we now refer to as Classes 15 and 16. The author is well suited to the task of bringing together and analysing a huge volume of data, as he has written similar profiles of Classes 17, 21, 28 and 29. As he himself points out, this book is slightly different as it conflates the histories of two separate classes (the 44 BTH Type 1s and the 10 NBL Type 1s) in a single story, united by

having the same Paxman prime mover, as well as similar geographic areas and types of operation.

The context of the locomotives’ construction is established, with sections on technical aspects, design, liveries, delivery/withdrawals, storage and scrapping (sadly, no

Class 16 survives and only one Class 15 escaped the scrapyard). Around two-thirds of the book is devoted to locomotive histories, where each class member is illustrated and an abridged working life presented.

Modellers will find the wealth of pictures particularly useful, as four machines outlived their peers by some margin when they were converted into departmental vehicles to provide ETH for pre-heating coaching stock. This enabled them to still be seen well into the 1980s.