NEWS UPDATE

DB CARGO

HAVING taken the best part of two months to return to Toton after developing wheelset issues at Didcot, No. 66100 was quickly repaired and spent just three weeks on the Nottinghamshire depot before departing back into service on July 28. Toton’s paintshop was also working efficiently during the same period, releasing both Nos. 66014 and 66039 in ‘traffic’ red. This leaves 87 Class 66s in some form of EWS livery on this side of the Channel, which at the current rate of painting will take around three years to complete!

EVERSHOLT LEASING

THE second and final member of the Rail Operations Group/DATS testing fleet, No. 91122, has been cut up by Sims Metals, Newport, the former

No. 91022 being consigned to oblivion by the end of the second week of August. Completed by Crewe Works in September 1990 and officially allocated to Bounds Green the following month, it was subsequently renumbered into the Class 91/1 series in January 2002 after reliability modifications. In January 2020, it became one of the third tranche of locomotives to be stood down by LNER, but was transferred, along with No. 91128, to ROG/DATS for ECML and MML test train work, which ended in April 2021.

■ Separately, at CF Booth, Rotherham, the same fate has befallen No. 91103. Taken into BR stock in April 1988 as No. 91003, it was famously one of three locomotives to attend

IVA 88 in Hamburg (Internationale Verkehrsausstellung / International Transport & Traffic Exhibition) the following June, along with Nos. 89001 and 90008 and ‘Sprinter’ DMU

No. 150263. It was renumbered after refurbishment in September 2001 and served almost 19 more years before being stored in August 2019, the second member of the class to be retired. As at the end of August 2022 No. 91104 remained in its arrival condition, but will likely be scrapped by the time this column is published.