For the mountainous routes in Devon and Cornwall, the Western Region decided to purchase lighter diesel-hydraulic locomotives. Since Germany was the leader in this area, the technology of the V 200 of the Bundesbahn was licensed and packed into the smaller loading gauge. The resulting D800 (later class 42 or “Warship class”) was built in Swindon and had two Maybach engines built at Bristol Siddeley, each mated to a Mekydro gearbox. At the same time, the Class 43 was developed at North British with MAN engines and Voith transmissions. Since those responsible had an aversion to diesel-hydraulic locomotives, both classes were retired by 1972.

After the Western Region had already ordered diesel-hydraulic locomotives, unlike the rest of the country, a more powerful locomotive was needed. This led to the production of 74 twin-engine machines with a total of 2,700 hp. With a top speed of 90 mph they occasionally reached 100 mph. They were given numbers from D1000 and are better known today under their later TOPS class 52. Like the other British diesel hydraulic locos they did not have one long life, so most were retired by 1976. As a result, none of them received the new number plate with the TOPS class.

Five prototypes of the V 200 were built by Krauss-Maffei in 1953 as one of the first mainline diesel locomotives in the Bundesbahn. The high-speed Maybach and Mercedes V-12 diesel engines available at the time had 1,000 hp, which is why two were used in each locomotive and led to the designation V 200. In the production models, they each made 1,100 hp. 20 locomotives were built by MaK and 61 by Krauss-Maffei.

The engines were behind the cabs and each had its own torque converter under the cabs. In order to enable jerk-free shifting, the shifting points of the transmissions have been slightly offset from one another. The two engine types and the two different gear boxes were interchangeable, also with the locomotives of the V 80 and V 100¹⁰ classes, as well as the VT 08, VT11⁵ and VT 12⁵ multiple units. They had push-pull and multiple controls and had a train heating boiler in the middle of the locomotive body.

The V 200⁰ was initially used in high-value express train service. Especially on mountainous routes like those in the Black Forest, the engine power could not cope with the increasing train weights, which often led to damage to the locomotives and gave the impetus for the development of the V 200¹ with a total of 2,700 hp. As the electrification of the Bundesbahn network progressed, the V 200⁰ was no longer required in express service and was increasingly used in front of local and freight trains. From 1977 they were concentrated in the north, where many lines were not yet electrified. Since the steam heating could soon no longer be used and the maintenance of two diesel engines was too expensive, they were retired by 1984. Later diesel locomotives of the Bundesbahn only had one, more powerful engine.

Then seven units were sold to the SBB in Switzerland and used in front of construction and freight trains. The machines used there as the Am 4/4 attracted attention with many defects and were sold to various private German companies in 1997 after a general overhaul. Also in the eighties, ten pieces came to Italy to the Ferrovia Suzzara-Ferrara. The nine remaining were completely overhauled between 2002 and 2006 and fitted with new Caterpillar engines. In 2017 and 2018, the remaining seven units were sold to a track construction company.

Since the V 200⁰ could not cope with the increasing train weights, the V 200¹ was created with more powerful engines. The basic structure was the same as that of its predecessor, but the engines here each had 1,350 hp instead of 1,100 hp. It was now limited to just one engine and one transmission type. As the engines were now heavier and the wheelsets had to be strengthened, lightweight materials in some places and a smaller train heating boiler were used to keep the weight down.

The driver's cabs were adapted to the state of the art so that the power notches could now be selected using a hand wheel instead of a crank. Out of the 50 locomotives produced, the last 30 received some improvements. These affected the cooling circuit, silencer, anti-slip device and the Sifa. Since the MB 12 V 652 TZ engine did not turn out to be very stable, the TA variant with piston cooling instead of piston crown cooling was used in later locomotives.

221 136 of Eisenbahngesellschaft Potsdam May 2018 on the Braunschweig port railway

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The V 200¹ was mainly used on the Allgäu Railway, in the Black Forest, on the Vogelfluglinie from Hamburg to Denmark and on the route between Hamburg and Osnabrück. At times, the top speed had to be reduced from 140 to 120 km/h because the bogies tended to rock. The use on passenger trains ended around 1975, since the passenger cars with steam heating disappeared.

The locomotives thus migrated to freight service, where they were soon concentrated in the Ruhr area. More and more damage was caused by the lightweight construction, because they were designed for lighter express trains. After freight traffic in the Ruhr area declined and the two engines were too expensive to maintain, they were phased out by 1988.

As with the V 200⁰, many locomotives were sold abroad at the end of their service life with the Bundesbahn. A total of 20 were refurbished in Germany or Italy and then sold to the Greek OSE. these locomotives returned to Germany in 2002 for the Prignitz Railway. Five locomotives were sold to the Albanian State Railways HSH, where four were scrapped in 2004 and the last one only in 2017 after a few years of standstill. Today there are still twelve operational V 200¹, most of which are still in use with private railways.