British Rail HS4000

what is it?

HS4000 Kestrel was a prototype high-powered mainline diesel locomotive that was built in 1967 by Brush Traction, Loughborough, as a technology demonstrator for potential future British Rail and export orders. The locomotive number is a combination of the initials of Hawker Siddeley (the owners of Brush Traction) and the power rating of its Sulzer diesel engine (4,000 hp), making it the most powerful locomotive built by the company. It was of Co-Co wheel arrangement and was fitted with a Sulzer 16LVA24 engine rated at 4,000 horsepower (3,000 kW) providing a maximum speed of 110 mph (180 km/h) and weighed 133 tonnes.

who runs it

British RailSRSoviet Railways

base stats

• speed 177 km/htop speed
• power 3 MWpower output
• weight 126 tin working order

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 59 years ago, in 1967.
• 🏎️Top speed is 1.4× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
• ⏱️At full speed it would cover Amsterdam–Utrecht (≈ 40 km) in 14 minutes.
• 🚗3 MW is about 35 family cars (~85 kW each) flat out.
• 🐘Weighs about as much as 21 African elephants (~6 t each).
• 📏20.1 m long: about 4 cars parked nose to tail.

diesel locomotive: A diesel engine on board drives the wheels, usually through a generator (diesel-electric).

spec sheet

built

1967

status

retired

number built

—

kind

Diesel-electric

traction

diesel

origin

🇬🇧 United Kingdom

builders

Hawker Siddeley, Brush Traction

operators

British Rail, Soviet Railways

top speed

177 km/h

power

3 MW

gauge

1,435 mm standard gauge

wheel arrangement

Co′Co′

length

20.1 m

weight

126 t

From the Wikipedia infobox and Wikidata. Blank means the sources don't say.