Diesel Locomotives - British Rail Class 67 and 68: Books

Class 67 and 68 Locomotives

Thirty Class 67 locomotives were ordered by EWS for use on parcels traffic to help replace the Class 47s that they had inherited. They were built in Spain, by Alstom at their Valencia factory, with the first locomotive appearing in the UK in 1999. These locos performed faultlessly on the parcels work until the contract was lost.

This allowed the class to spread further, and they have found a good use on hire to passenger operators, and also on charter traffic. All are still in use, most with DB Cargo and two having been sold to Colas.

Also built in Spain, the Class 68 locomotives were ordered by Direct Rail Services in 2012, with the first loco arriving in 2014.
Thirty-four have so far been ordered so far, and are used on a variety of freight and also passenger workings, finding regular use with ScotRail and Chiltern. They will also soon be used by TransPennine Express. This book shows the diversity of these two mainline classes.

Class 67s

In the late 1990s, English, Welsh & Scottish Railway (EWS) ordered a large fleet of 250 Class 66 locomotives to replace a variety of freight locomotive types that had been in service with British Rail for many years.
However, EWS also required something with a bit more performance, as well as electric train supply, for hauling charter and mail trains, which were still quite common at that time.
A partnership with Royal Mail resulted in the Class 67s moving post around the country. When Royal Mail ended that arrangement in 2004, the Class 67s were pushed into other areas of work, including light freight and occasional passenger services, as well as continuing with charters.

Although the design of the Class 67s has not been to everyone's taste, they do at least add a bit of variety to the modern scene. During the 20 years that they have been in service, they have been very reliable with only occasional failures. Containing 220 images, this book illustrates all 30 locos in the class during their first two decades in service.

Class 68 and Class 88 Locomotives

NEW

In 2012, Direct Rail Services (DRS) placed an order with Vossloh (now Stadler Rail) for its first Class 68 diesel locomotives. The fleet size has now grown to thirty-four. Their later order was for ten Class 88 locomotives, an electro-diesel variant of the Class 68.
Since delivery, the 68s have worked alongside the operator's fleet of ageing, so-called 'heritage', locos. With these locos now at their disposal, they are surely destined to be the mainstay of the company's fleet for some time to come.

In addition to their use as a mixed traffic locomotive for DRS themselves, the company lease these locos to passenger train operators such as Scotrail and Chiltern Railways. Their wide range of duties is covered in this book. Here, John Jackson tracks the first few years of their use on an increasing variety of workings.