Thursday 27 July 2023

I Love The Sign On The Side Of This train,

"I am the backbone of the economy",


photograph DB Cargo UK media release, the signage is on all of the fleet of the twenty-four class 90 electric locomotives in service, which are owned by DB Cargo UK their original deployment was on passenger express services, but the largest freight operator in the UK, with a huge reputation for environmental awareness, has been commercially forced to ditch electric traction for diesel, from the article:

‘It is a damning indictment of the economic situation in the UK. There has been widespread discontent at the UK government’s economic management, particularly in the energy sector, which has been subject to rampant inflation and huge price rises, particularly in the electricity generation market. This has led to the environmentally counter-productive measure of switching off electric locomotives from freight operations, and firing up diesels as replacement traction’.

the fact of life, electricity in the UK is so way overpriced that the company has put its two-dozen class 90 locomotives on permanent discharge, offering them for sale or scrap, the full article is here, if you read the article it mentions that in late 2021 Freightliner faced a similar crisis, when it also took down its electric fleet.



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