Thats in fact what used to be two Class 08's but one had its cab stripped off and both were ballasted a total of 20 long tons heavier altogether. Basically the Tinsley humping yard needed more power and this was the result and hence classified as Class 13 instead, with three such master-slave pairs having been converted. Service wasn't exactly long nevertheless as the yard in question only opened in 1965 but never got fully realized before it finally started closing down section-by-section starting from the end of 1984 and eventually by the 1990's just a few tracks remained for limited uses. And there are more photos of both the units or the yard itself here
Fun fact I learned reading about these yesterday: other parts of the world call this a cow-calf arrangement. If there are multiple 'calves' they are indeed called a herd.
Yes and as a friendly footnote the letter B is considered short form for 'booster' which makes sense because a 1500hp locomotive "gets boosted" by a second 1500hp one. Of course there is no performance difference between two conventional 1500hp locomotives MU-ed together and one conventional 1500hp locomotive paired with a 1500hp B unit but its just..umm well yeah you get the idea without me writing a much longer reply hm?!
If you don't mind, one another small technical note I'll mention is that some B units were truly 'slave' as they had no controls of their own at all (so had to be moved around as an extra-heavy deadweight or with a mutual master locomotive of some kind), while many B units otherwise had some kind of 'barely so' basic controls which were just enough to be able to move the unit around on its own with .. Just for quick example sake, this is a F7A cab which has full controls and even a few standard readouts too - whereas this is the F7B with only a simple throttle stand and very limited brake control but otherwise you basically pretty much don't even have anything more than that!
Thats in fact what used to be two Class 08's but one had its cab stripped off and both were ballasted a total of 20 long tons heavier altogether. Basically the Tinsley humping yard needed more power and this was the result and hence classified as Class 13 instead, with three such master-slave pairs having been converted. Service wasn't exactly long nevertheless as the yard in question only opened in 1965 but never got fully realized before it finally started closing down section-by-section starting from the end of 1984 and eventually by the 1990's just a few tracks remained for limited uses.
And there are more photos of both the units or the yard itself here
Could they be decoupled or were they permanently one unit?
Fun fact I learned reading about these yesterday: other parts of the world call this a cow-calf arrangement. If there are multiple 'calves' they are indeed called a herd.
Huh, never considered that non-American railroads would just strip the cabs off locomotives for slugs, too, but it's obvious in hindsight.
Just as a small grammar nitpick, its not actually a slug as it still has its own powerplant in the slave unit.
Closer to a B unit in American terminology, I think?
Yes and as a friendly footnote the letter B is considered short form for 'booster' which makes sense because a 1500hp locomotive "gets boosted" by a second 1500hp one. Of course there is no performance difference between two conventional 1500hp locomotives MU-ed together and one conventional 1500hp locomotive paired with a 1500hp B unit but its just..umm well yeah you get the idea without me writing a much longer reply hm?!
Yeah I gotcha. That makes sense.
I'd always assumed it was just an A (master) / B (slave) thing.
If you don't mind, one another small technical note I'll mention is that some B units were truly 'slave' as they had no controls of their own at all (so had to be moved around as an extra-heavy deadweight or with a mutual master locomotive of some kind), while many B units otherwise had some kind of 'barely so' basic controls which were just enough to be able to move the unit around on its own with .. Just for quick example sake, this is a F7A cab which has full controls and even a few standard readouts too - whereas this is the F7B with only a simple throttle stand and very limited brake control but otherwise you basically pretty much don't even have anything more than that!
Ahh, dear old Tinsley yard, not much left now. ☹️
Is that... Iron Arry and Iron Bert?
used to be... now it's just bery