page_title: Western Region of British Railways
section_title: Rolling stock
hierarchical_section_title: Western Region of British Railways / Rolling stock
caption_attribution_description: The one with the nose is a Class 37; the one without it a Class 35 Hymek diesel hydraulic.
context_page_description: The Western Region was a region of British Railways from 1948. The region ceased to be an operating unit in its own right on completion of the "Organising for Quality" initiative on 6 April 1992. The Region consisted principally of ex-Great Western Railway lines, minus certain lines west of Birmingham, which were transferred to the London Midland Region in 1963 and with the addition of all former Southern Railway routes west of Exeter, which were subsequently rationalised.
context_section_description: The Western Region built a large number of steam locomotives to GWR designs including 341 pannier tanks, even after the advent of diesel shunters. Both 2-6-0 tender and 2-6-2 tank engine variants of the BR Standard Class 3 were also built by the Western Region. It was the first region of BR to completely eliminate steam traction under the 1955 Modernisation Plan.
  While the other BR regions introduced diesel-electric locomotives the Western Region went its own way by purchasing a complete range of diesel-hydraulic locomotives covering the type 1 to type 4 power requirements. These included the Warship locomotives, which were based on proven West German designs, the British-designed Class 14, Hymek and Western types; these were all eventually withdrawn and replaced with more standard British Rail diesel-electric classes such as the Class 37 and Class 47.
  One of the major improvements on the Western Region, and later on the Eastern Region East Coast Main Line, was the introduction on the Great Western main line of the InterCity 125 trains in 1976/7 bringing major accelerations to the timetables.
caption: English Electric Type 3 D6993 and Hymek D7094 at Newport in 1967 with freight trains from the South Wales heavy industry.  The Hymeks were one of the Western Region's diesel-hydraulic locomotives.
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