Half A Century of Locomotives from Alan Keef Ltd 1972-2022

Half A Century of Locomotives from Alan Keef Ltd 1972-2022

Alan M. Keef

160 pages. 275x215mm. Printed on gloss art paper with colour laminated board covers.

ISBN13 : 9781915069092

£27.50

To mark the fiftieth year of the company’s existence, this book covers some 119 locomotives that are classified as having been built by Alan Keef Ltd. From a first, very crude, diesel locomotive in 1976 to sophisticated machines such as that below, including several steam locomotives and a brief mention of monorails, they are all here. Battery electric locomotives are included with hybrid technology being only just over the horizon. Locomotives are listed in chronological order and include basic mechanical details, the customer and later transfers to new owners, together with names gained or lost along the way. With a portrait style image of each machine as built, photographs in its working environment are also given. There is also a section on models of Keef locomotives together with numerous drawings for those so inclined. In addition, there is a section on the many and various items of rolling stock built by the company.

Half A Century of Locomotives from Alan Keef Ltd 1972-2022 - Sample Images

AK 18 & 19 (1985), 18 later Jeffrey – These two locomotives were built for ICI Nobel Explosives Ltd, for their site at Stevenston in Ayrshire, Scotland, and they were effectively the ultimate development of the ‘K30’ design. We were very proud of them and felt we had ‘arrived’ on the locomotive scene. They were fitted with Perkins 3.152 engines of 42hp and the well-tried Linde/Poclain hydrostatic transmission. A first was a sound-insulated cab to keep noise levels down to 85Db. The sprung buffer/coupler was designed to work with the very short wheelbase double buffer wagons used on the system. These locomotives were restricted to 8mph as the drivers had been playing dodgems with the previous Barclay locomotives, which had a considerable turn of speed, with predictably disastrous results.

AK 92 (2017) No. 762 Lyn – This is another replica steam locomotive but this time on a grand scale. The original Lyn was built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia, USA for the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway in north Devon and delivered in 1898. This occurred because all suitable British builders had full order books at the time. When the preservation society for the railway got into its stride it felt that this would be a suitable locomotive for the new railway and a separate organisation, The 762 Club Ltd, was set up to fund and organise the building. The rest, as they say, is history. However, whilst the original Lyn would happily handle a 3-coach train over the entire railway, it was required that the new one should cope with six coaches. This needed some very sophisticated design work, so the locomotive is on roller bearings throughout, including eccentric sheaves, has a Lempor exhaust, together with a boiler pressure of 250psi and superheated steam. Altogether a very modern steam locomotive. In common with many of these projects a number of the components were supplied by sponsors of the project with, for instance the complete cab being made by society members.