Shed Heaven - Looking Back On 25 Years of the Class 66
The Class 66 has become ubiquitous across the British railway network and 2023 see’s the 25th anniversary of the introduction of the class. The first Class 66 actually arrived in Britain on April 18th, 1998. It has since been joined by several hundreds more and they have become a vital part of the todays network.
This story began with the English Welsh and Scottish Railway Company (EWS) back in 1996. The then new company needed to upgrade its fleet of increasingly unreliable locomotives that it had inherited from the takeover of five of the British Rail businesses (Loadhaul, Mainline, Transrail, Rail Express Systems and Railfreight Distribution).
Company Chairman Ed Burkhardt reviewed the UK motive power situation, with low availability, high maintenance costs and a low degree of standardisation. His conclusion was not good. Mr. Burkhardt was also chair of Wisconsin Central over in the USA, where he was used to freights being 20,000 tons or more when 4000 tons would be considered huge in the UK - those heaviest of trains were handled by the EMD Class 59. EWS approached General Motors Electro-Motive Division (GM), which had designed and produced the impressively reliable Class 59 and were asked to design the new loco which was to become Class 66 (EWS wanted it to be class 61 but were refused). The company requested a more modern version of the Class 59, capable of hauling freight trains at 75mph, a maximum of Route Availability 7 category and with a high fuel capacity.
Classified JT42CWR by GM, the class 66 design drew heavily of the style of the 59 to ease the certification process for gauging but that is where the similarity stopped. A different engine was fitted (12-cyl against the class 59’s 16-cyl) which made the Class 66 mechanically a closer relation to the Iarnród Éireann 201 Class – with an updated electronics package. Another key area of upgrade was the ‘trucks’ (bogies), The class 66 were the first in the UK to be fitted with the High Traction Radial Bogie (HTRB) type, which steer the wheels into a curve to reduce the force on them, improving ride quality and reducing flange wear. Dubbed the ‘biggest locomotive order since the steam era’ EWS placed £350 million on the table and ordered 250 right off the bat. Design work was completed in October 1996 with work beginning on 66001 in May 1997 at GM’s works in London, Ontario, Canada. Just 9 months later, 66001 was complete and was moved to Albany, New Jersey by rail and loaded onto Jumbo Shippings MV Fairload.
Following a 2-week sailing, the ship docked at the port of Immingham and 66001 touched down on British soil at 08:53 on 18th April 1998. The loco was taken to Immingham depot to be officially unveiled to the press before moving to Toton to be thoroughly inspected. Following further tests at Derby, 66001 returned to Toton, from which it hauled its first test train to Buxton and back on May 27 before final testing ahead of its first revenue-earning trip on a Bentwick to Drakelow coal train June 2 (with 58049 for insurance) at the same time as this, 66002 was just beginning trials at the Transportation Technology centre in Pueblo, Colorado. With testing proving positive, GM started work on the first batch of 248 production locomotives (66001 and 002 were always considered ‘prototypes’) and, by mid-June, 14 had already been laid out, with 66003 and 66004 almost complete.
On July 3, 66001 was moved to Cardiff Canton for staff training. With the rest of the class due for delivery into Newport Docks, it was necessary to train local fitters there. With efficiency at the heart of EWS plans, testing on the rest of the batch would be completed before they were loaded onto Jumbo Shippings vessels (which could transport up to 11 ‘66s’ at a time) so that only routine checks and fuelling were needed when they arrived. This meant they could be sent straight into traffic once they were unloaded.
As an aside, 66002 was kept in America for testing for a year, which is why it did not come over with the second batch. Deliveries continued apace and this allowed EWS to implement widespread withdrawal of older types – initially those that the 66s were intended to replace but latterly even second generation BR freight locomotives were in the frame. Class 47s were the worst hit in numbers but the ‘Red Death’ (as it was dubbed by enthusiasts at the time) allowed EWS to withdraw the last of the class 31 and 33 and reduce numbers of class 37s and 73s too. Between 1998 and 2000 - the height of the phase, the withdrawal ratio could be as high as five old locos withdrawn for every one Class 66 off the boat.
The successful introduction of Class 66 was starting to ruffle feathers amongst other freight operators. Freightliner had first-hand experience of using GM power plants having previously had 12 of its class 47s re-engineered to class 57 as part of a reliability programme with reconditioned power units. Whilst cost effective this was only ever a ‘stop-gap’ and Freightliner ordered their first 5 locomotives in March 1999 with a follow up order for another 15 locomotives shortly after.
The final EWS Class 66, 66250, was delivered on June 21, 2000, just 26 months after the first, itself, arriving alongside Freightliner’s 66506-66510. These arrivals allowed Freightliner to also withdraw their aging class 47s, Not only did the new class 66s offer nearly double the fuel range, but Freightliner posted a regular availability of 98% and an average of 70,000 miles between failures, meaning Class 66s were far outperforming the Class 57s at 30,000 miles between failures and just 7,000 miles of the class 47s.
A new precedent had been set. So dramatic were the operational improvements for EWS and Freightliner, that over the next decade even some of the smaller and younger freight operators would order new Class 66s over older, second-hand locomotives (often displaced by the introduction of class 66s elsewhere).
At the start of 2000, GB Railways (who then operated the Anglia passenger franchise) moved into the freight market with an order for seven class 66s. These were to be numbered in the 66/7 range and, like the Freightliner 66/5s were identical to the EWS 66/0s. GBR was to use these for its recently set-up freight arm, GB Railfreight (GBRf), which had won a deal with Railtrack to supply seven brand new locomotives to move infrastructure trains in Anglia and the southeast.
Up until 2000, all class 66s that had been built were to the same specification. The 250 for EWS, 20 for Freightliner and 7 for GBRf were all pretty much interchangeable however the first major change came when Freightliner specified and order for locomotives with a lower gear ratio and a higher tractive effort than standard, for use on heavier block trains. This batch of 25 eventually were to become 66/6s.
2002 saw another operator turn to class 66. Direct Rail Services who had originally used Class 20s, 33s and 37s for its traffic but as the company was expanding its operations more locomotives were needed to compete for intermodal business. As a result, an initial order for 10 locomotives was placed in 2002 – these happened to be some the last of the ‘standard’ class 66s to be delivered as the International Union of Railways (UIC) regulations passed a ruling that all locomotives ordered after December 2002 would have to meet new emissions requirements. This new rule meant no fewer than 53 Class 66s were added to GM’s order book in a single day on December 31 2002! This created a backlog, and which took years to clear.
The final ‘standard’ 66 was delivered in 2006, 66622 for Freightliner (which was also their 100th class 66). Fortunately, GM had already developed a low-emission variant of the class 66. This was achieved by making changes to the engine cooling system to allow it to run at a lower temperature. Modifications were made also to injectors and the pistons; A bigger cooling group was fitted, and the fuel tank size was reduced to meet weight restrictions. After much discussion about the classification of the new low-emission version (EWS wanted to classify them as Class 68s but the Rolling Stock Library disagreed) they were classified as 66/9s.
In April 2006, General Motors’ Electro-Motive Division was sold to a consortium that included Greenbriar Equity Group and Berkshire Partners. It became Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD).
There were few issues with the 66, with several hundred now in traffic. Early issues with the self-steering bogies had been rectified however many complaints about the driving cabs had been made to union ASLEF. Excessive heat and noise were the main niggles which led to GBRf requesting modifications for its next batch of locomotives, starting with 66708. A new cab layout with wrap around desks, a new drivers seat, improved sound deadening and air conditioning transformed the working environment on these locomotive for drivers.
Fastline Freight who had used refurbished class 56’s expanded their operations and required more traction, the obvious choice being to jump on the class 66 bandwagon, they would eventually acquire 6 before their parent companies bankruptcy forced them to close. The 6 locomotives were transferred to DRS. They were among the last examples to be delivered from EMD. In a similar story, Advenza Freight leased four class 66s in May 2009 at the height of the economic downturn and by October that year Advenza had gone bust and the ‘66s’ were returned to Porterbrook. The final freight to join ‘club 66’ was Colas Rail back in October 2009 to use on intermodal and fly ash trains
From this point on, the history and allocation of class 66’s becomes rather interesting. The standardised nature has seen locomotives swap operators, be renumbered, swap again and so on. EWS sent a number of locomotives to France under the ‘Euro Cargo Rail’ banner – some of which have returned, Freightliner likewise sent a number of locomotives to work for its Polish division (as has DB, the successor to EWS) The success of the Class 66/JT42CWR type didn’t go unnoticed on the world stage, the design has been sought after internationally, with orders going in from across Europe and Egypt, over 650 units have been produced for the worldwide market of which 480 were built for the UK. Not all changes have been exports either, an upturn in traffic for GBRf saw them acquire euro-spec class 66s and bring them to the UK. This has resulted in many smaller variations to the class as not all euro models were identical, nor retro fitted identically.
The final batch of class 66s was ordered 10 years ago now, back in 2013 by GBRf. By this stage, production had moved from London, Ontario to Muncie, Indiana. This shift added new variations to some of the body features and the locomotives from this last production differ from all the others. The final class 66 built, 66779, was painted in a special British Railways green livery, mirroring that of the last British Railways steam locomotive built, Evening Star. 66779 was named to match its coal burning counterpart at the National Railway Museum on the 10th of May, 2016 bringing the curtain down on class 66 production worldwide. A gesture made at that unveiling by GBRf CEO, John Smith, was promising the locomotive to the national collection upon its projected withdrawal following its predicted 40 year working life.
Who would have thought 25 years ago, the dreaded shed, the locomotive that EWS foresaw as a game-changer has been exactly that. In over two decades, the type has not seen any significant challenge to its supremacy. The leap of faith taken by the then young EWS company with Ed Burkhardt at the helm paid off and has achieved something that no domestic build locomotive has ever managed to do and spread its success to the continent. Maybe enthusiasts have learned to love a 66, after all there is a whole generation who would know nothing different. Perhaps we should look back with fondness at the dawn of a new era for British rail freight. Not Read Death as they said but Red Revolution.
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