SPECIAL - Photo Review ~ Class 68's.

It's Wednesday and only two days until the weekend! Lucas and Harry are currently on vacation which leaves myself, Liam and Lewis here to bring you posts!

Coming up:

Tomorrow will bring a TOC Focus from Liam.
Lewis will have a photo review of his recent trips on Friday.
I have a post on Saturday which is TBC.
And finally on Sunday Lewis will bring the weekly review!

You may have missed some of our recent posts? Well do not fear, because they are available to take a look at here; 
Now without further a do, I concentrate back on my post today which is about Class 68 locomotives, already briefly mentioned in my Direct Rail Services post on Monday.
68 008 "Avenger" on it's way to Wembley Lmd.


  • Class 68's are a mainline mixed traffic  locomotive manufactured by Vossloh in Valencia, Spain for the freight operating country DRS. The locomotives were ordered in 2012 by DRS, with 15 100mph Vossloh Eurolight locomotives being required for intermodal and passenger work. 
  • The 68's were built between 2013 and 2014. 68 002 was the first locomotive to arrive in the UK on the 19th January 2014, with the loco being transported by road to Carlisle Kingmoor Depot.

  • One by one the locomotives have arrived in the UK and been tested with Mk2 stock/long route runs/working intermodal trains.
  • 68 005 attended MultiModal 2014 at Birmingham NEC while also Class 68's were on show at Crewe Gresty Bridge DRS open day 2014. 68 005 was on the first freight to Scotland, while 68 002 was the first DRS liveried Class 68 to run on Chiltern rails on a training run from Wembley to Stourbridge Junction.
68 012 on Chiltern duties at London Marylebone.

  • And from then onwards, the Class 68's have been used on Mountsorrell workings, RHTT stock movement, light training runs, drag moves, rail-tours and much more! 
  • DRS have since taken the decision to order 10 more Class 68's, taking the total number from 15 to 25 (68 001 - 68 025.) 6 Class 68's are hired to Chiltern Railways for use on Chiltern Mainline services (68 010 - 68 015.) The locomotive, 68 012 (to the right) was the first locomotive sub-leased to Chiltern to haul a passenger train on December the 15th last year. The roll-out of the Class 68's was delayed due to the Banbury- Leamington Spa landslip, however all the 68's eventually entered service a couple of months back.
  • Class 68's have been operating on Fife Circle diagrams this year, with 68 006 and 68 007 receiving the Scot Rail Livery.Driver training was undertaken from February/March, and then the diagrams commenced soon afterwards.

Picture - 68 013 sat in Platform 1 of London Marylebone, awaiting departure on one of the peak-evening services. 

And finally, 68 010 flying at speed past West Ruislip on Saturday 11th July on the 17:06 London Marylebone - Birmingham Moor Street!

The next delivery is due in October 2015, with locomotives hopefully entering service from early-mid 2016.


I hope you enjoyed this post, next up is a TOC focus post from Liam. ^Andy


Regards:

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