Building a locomotive for use deep underground in the coal mines was a head-scratching problem in July 1980.

Diesel engines would be toxic to workers and couldn’t cope with the dust-filled air, while electric motors had to contend with travelling through more than a foot of water.

Derailments were commonplace and repairs had to be completed on the move with simple tools. If the list of problems wasn’t already complex, the locomotive needed to be small enough to be lowered in the cages to the bottom of the mine.

The answer behind all of these issues was discovered by Hatton-based firm Clayton Equipment Ltd. The company secured a contract with the National Coal Board – it’s largest UK customer – to design and build a high-speed rail car. The answer was a 24-seater vehicle capable of reaching speeds of 25mph.

Clayton wasn't new to this work, the firm already exported locomotives to Greenland’s glaciers and to deserts in Tunisia. The firm exported 60 per cent of its products with its main orders being in Ghana for gold mining and Zambia for copper mining and Canada for minerals.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan in a Clayton locomotive at Custom House in London to ride the Elizabeth line for first time.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan in a Clayton locomotive at Custom House in London to ride the Elizabeth line for first time.

The firm was founded in 1930 and tackled day-to-day engineering before setting up in locomotive manufacture in 1950. While business boomed at first, it was hit hard when British Railways started to produce its own machines during the modernisation from steam to diesel between 1957 and 1965.

Plans for a Channel Tunnel were scrapped in 1975 after some tentative tunneling tests at Shakespeare Cliff. If this original tunnel plan had continued, Clayton had locomotives lined-up ready for use.

Some Clayton machines lay unused and rusting in the original Channel Tunnel for years after the project had been scrapped – only for the plan to be revitalised in 1984 and work finally started in the UK in 1988.

Clayton continues to design and build innovative locomotives and it was a Clayton locomotive used by London Mayor Sadiq Khan when he inspected work on the Crossrail project. Clayton is now based at Centrum 100, in Burton.

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