British Rail Class 89

By -
The Class 89 is a one of a kind (literally) electric locomotive designed by Brush Traction and built at British Rail Engineering Limited Crewe Works in 1986. One unit, 89001, was ever built. She was named Avocet by Margaret Thatcher in 1989, whose Party instrumented the murder of the British Railways in 1993. The Class 89 was thought to be used in the Channel Tunnel and also replace aging Class 86 locomotives. These tasks however ended up with Classes 90, 92, and 9, but some of the Class 89's designed lived on in these later locomotives. Eventually the Avocet ended up hauling InterCity trains on the then newly electrified East Coast Main Line between London King's X and Leeds wearing the InterCity livery. She was sidelined in 1989 due to a major failure and put in storage, just days before the Class 91, power for the InterCity 225 went in service.


During a motive power shortage in 1996, the Great North Eastern Railway, TOC then for the InterCity East Coast franchise, repaired the unit and placed her back on inter city services on her old route until she suffered another major failure. Today the Class 89 is owned by AC Locomotive Group, a dedicated AC electric locomotive preservation society. Although she has yet to be fully restored, but at least the fans know she's in good hands. When fully repaired, her 6 axles will again pump out 6,000 horsepower and accelerate her to her top speed of 125 mph.

Comments

Eric said…
This post got me searching through TOTW for another class, the Class 142 BREL or Skippers.

A one-unit BREL railbus came to Canada around 1981 for testing in Northern Manitoba, with a two-unit Class 142 arriving in 1986 and attending Expo 86 in Vancouver.

I've included some information on these railbuses in my upcoming VIA book. Interesting to learn about the testing of these British units in Canada!

Thanks for sharing,
Eric
Sep 8, 2012, 4:19:00 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Amtrak NPCU

By -
Image
The NPCU or Non-powered Control Units are control cars used by Amtrak that are modified from surplus EMD F40PH locomotives. A control car is a generic term for a non-powered railroad vehicle that can control operation of a train from the end opposite to the position of the locomotive. They can be used with diesel or electric motive power, allowing push-pull operation without the use of an additional locomotive. Control cars first appeared in the USA and France in 1960s. Trains operating with a locomotive at one end and a control car at the other do not require the locomotive to run around to the opposite end of the train when reversing direction. In the United States, most control cars are modified from retired locomotives by removing tractive equipment and adding side baggage doors and have been used on several passenger railroads. The control cars are connected through the consist of the train by standard AAR 27-wire multiple unit jumper cables. The NPCUs at Amtrak are a
Read more

Briefly on the AAR Coupler Part 2

By -
Image
Last week, we've identified the Janney coupler and briefly looked at its elegant design. This week, let's, again, very briefly, look at the different types of Janney coupler that are widely used today. I will only talk about the head of the coupler, and ignore anything that the general public may need to trespass onto railroad property and get in a unsafe situation in order to have a good look at. As far as coupler heads are concerned, there are 3 types in used today. Type E, F, and H. Types E and F are used on freight, and H used on passenger equipment. Since the withdrawal of passenger service in North America by private railroads, the Type H standard is no longer maintained by the Association of American Railroads, a trade group formed of major freight railroads, but is under the control of the APTA, the American Public Transportation Association. Now let me introduce another term, slack. Slack is an allowed gap between two coupled up couplers. In other words, when most
Read more

SD70ACu

By Yi -
Image
After the post on the shiny rebuilt GE road power, it's only fair to have a look into what Progress Rail has to offer on their side of the table. I'm using the company's recently-changed, formal name of course. For those who are not up-to-date on the current state of North American railroading affairs, Progress Rail is the company (owned by Caterpillar) that purchased EMD a few years ago. The SD90MAC was arguably the biggest gong show in EMD's recent memory. It happened at a time when they were comfortably resting on their laurels, unaware the fateful changes that were about to occur in the locomotive market in the not-so-distant future (they got beaten badly by GE). What was supposed to be one of the most remarkable locomotives whose presence is to grace the mainlines in modern history, turned out to be an utter disaster (I'll redirect further readings to Wikipedia). As a result, today, the number of SD90s still in operation on a Class 1 Railroad is, if not id
Read more