Classify 58

The Classe 58 are a series of Diesel loco Co-Co in service on the network of the British railroads, designed for the traffic of heavy freight. Brought into service in 1982, they follow the American concept of modularization. They have origin received the delivered gray one of the sector Railfreight instead of the delivered blue one of Br. EWS withdrew them from the service to the beginning of the year 2000, but some of them were rented then in other countries, of which the Netherlands, the Spain and the France, in particular for railway working premises.

History

At the end of the years 1970, British Rail had decided to develop a news Locomotive freight economic and easy to maintain to face the foreseeable growth of the goods traffic during the years 1980, but which was to also be an exportable product. When the design of new Class 58 was approved by British Rail Board, the contract of construction of the engines was signed with British Rail Engineering (BREL) with Doncaster. The workshop `E2', where the machines were to be built, was then modernized with high expenses.

BREL gave up the traditional methods of construction of engines in favor of an entirely new approach - a innovating modular concept. this one allowed savings of construction and maintenance compared to the preceding methods.

The first engine, n° 58001, were given to British Rail with the workshops of Doncaster on December 9th, 1982 and the delivery of the remainder of the series followed quickly. The 58050 was temporarily equipped with a system SEPEX anti-ice-skating, but this one was regarded as failing and was deposited before the engine is brought into service by Br in 1987. After the delivery of the engines, the orders awaited export never arrived, and it assembly line of Doncaster was dismantled, so that the engine n° 58050 was not only the last of the type Classe 58, but also the last engine ever built with Doncaster in The Plant .

Since their startup with the beginning of the year 1980, Class 58 gave any satisfaction. Mainly affected the coal traffic in the Midlands, they also ensured of other services - Freightliners , Speedlinks , transport of steel and cars, transport in service and even of the special trains travellers.

Towards the end of the year 1990, it was quasi certain that all the series of Class 58 would remain in service at the beginning of the new millenium. Regarded as the machine of the most reliable type 5 and most coherent of the park of the type 5 of EWS, it was a shock for much when in 1999 one announced that a great number of the engines Classe 58 was going to be parked for one long life: the 58017 was the first with being parked, quickly followed by the 58022.

Since then, the remainder of Class 58 was parked in various places of the country. The startup of the 250 machines of the Classe 66 undoubtedly precipitated the decisions. The last engines Classe 58 were simply erased in September 2001 after having tractor drawn the last special train, the Bone Idol of London King' S Cross in Skegness and return.

In 2000, EWS announced that five Class 58 was going to be sent to the Netherlands to be rented at the Dutch company ACTS, railway company specialized in the transport of Conteneur S. Then, other specimens of the series were rented in Spain with the managing infrastructure GIF. Later on in France, 14 engines Classe 58 (and 26 Classe 56) were rented at the companies of work railway Fertis, TSO and Seco to tractor draw trains of ballast on the building sites of LGV Is European of 2002 to 2006.

See too

Material engine of the British railroads

External bonds

English particular Site on the Class 58

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