A Possible Farewell

Take a good look at this piece of 1980s engineering by BREL Crewe. As it isn't expected to last for too much longer.

Following the withdrawal of Virgin Trains' loco hauled sets with the advent of the Pendolino, the UK's two major operators of the Class 90 are DBS and National Express East Anglia. DBS employ their Class 90s primarily on freight work, but can also run excursion traffic and are also employed on the Caledonian Sleeper service between London and Edinburgh. National Express East Anglia have a fleet of 15 locomotives which are tasked with powering push-pull express services along the Great Eastern Main Line from London to Norwich. Freightliner also have a fleet of 9 locomotives which are used for intermodal traffic.

However, in the past week a piece of news came to light that Bombardier Transportation are in talks with both DBS and NXEA about introducing a new AC locomotive with a "Last Mile" diesel engine, entitled the "Traxx UK", and it's set to be a development of the companies mega successful Traxx locomotives from the continent. No doubt you may have seen them:





And so on and so forth. And I think people will agree with the general consensus, boring modern leccy things...

Here Class 90 number 90018 stands on the blocks at London Euston after an earlier arrival with a Caledonian Sleeper from Edinburgh.