Graham Farish Class 66
General Motors heavy freight design was introduced in 1998 and, besides becoming the standard British heavy freight locomotive, it is being adopted further afield in Europe. The move towards GM domination started with the introduction of the Class 59 by Foster Yeoman in 1985. Those locomotives were the only ones the company could find to meet their requirements. When the American backed English Welsh & Scottish (EWS) took over most of the freight business in Britain, they immediately sought to replace the ageing locomotive fleet. Wanting highly reliable and efficient machines they turned to General Motors to supply them. 250 of an updated Class 59 were ordered and built in Canada and these became the Class 66. Freightliner, Direct Rail Services (DRS) and GB Railfreight all followed suite.
One major change has been the introduction, since 2004, of 'green' locos with low-emission technology. Locomotives so fitted have an extra external door on the 'A' side of the machine. Our sample here is one of these. It is 371-394 in the livery of Bardon Aggregates and numbered 66623.