#3411
British Rail GT3
🇬🇧 United Kingdom ·built by English Electric· from 1958· prototype British gas-turbine locomotive
1 photo from Wikimedia Commons · credits & licences
- 1. GT3 at Leicester ..1961: Tucky1949· CC BY-SA 4.0
what is it?
GT3 (Gas Turbine 3) was a one-off experimental prototype mainline gas turbine locomotive built in 1961 by English Electric at its Vulcan Foundry in Newton-le-Willows to investigate the use of its gas turbines in rail traction applications. It followed 18000 and 18100 as gas turbines 1 and 2. It was designed by English Electric engineer J. O. P. Hughes in a project that started in the early 1950s.
who runs it
base stats
Bars compare against all trains: 600 km/h (maglev), 1,700 seats; power, weight and number built on a log scale up to 20 MW, 1,000 t and 20,000 built.
fun facts
- First built 68 years ago, in 1958.
- Top speed is 1.1× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
- 2.1 MW is about 24 family cars (~85 kW each) flat out.
- 20.7 m long: about 5 cars parked nose to tail.
diesel locomotive: A diesel engine on board drives the wheels, usually through a generator (diesel-electric).
spec sheet
- built
- 1958–1961
- status
- retired
- number built
- 1
- kind
- Gas Turbine mechanical
- traction
- gas turbine
- origin
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- builders
- English Electric, Vulcan Foundry
- operators
- British Rail, English Electric
- top speed
- 145 km/h
- power
- 2.1 MW
- wheel arrangement
- 4-6-0
- length
- 20.7 m
From the Wikipedia infobox and Wikidata. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: Wikidata Q4970930, Wikipedia: British Rail GT3 (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-25.