The rise of the Phoenix!
Starting out exporting redundant UK electric locomotives to Bulgaria and Hungary, Europhoenix has diversified in recent years into the UK locomotive hire sector, supplying Class 37s to Rail Operations Group and on spot hire contracts. Andy Coward finds ou
Andy Coward speaks to Glenn Edwards, managing director of Europhoenix, to chart the history of the company from its days reviving and exporting Class 87s for use in Bulgaria to entering the UK spot hire market with a fleet of Class 37s.
Europhoenix is a name that has become well known on the UK rail network in recent years, with its fleet of Class 37s often seen at the head of a variety of trains, with the distinctive red Phoenix logo adorning the sides of grey liveried locomotives. However, the company started out refurbishing, reactivating and exporting redundant Class 87s to Bulgaria, long before moving into the UK spot hire market. Founded by Glenn Edwards, the company was originally established as Electric Traction Services in 2007, before rebranding as Europhoenix a couple of years later.
The company was employed as the main contractor to overhaul a number of stored Class 87s that had been sold by Porterbrook to Romic Ace, who had agreed a deal with the Bulgarian Railway Company to overhaul and export them to Bulgaria for working heavy freight trains.
The 87s had been withdrawn by Virgin following the introduction of the Class 390 ‘Pendolino’ fleet and were all stored at Long Marston, where Glenn established a workshop to reactivate the locomotives. However, long periods in store had not been kind to the 87s and many had suffered extensively from water damage, with a lot requiring far more work than had originally been anticipated at the start of the project. He explained: “The problem with the 87s is they had a largely flat roof, which allowed rain water to build up, especially because they weren’t moving and this inevitably leaked inside, causing serious damage to components within the electrical cubicles, amongst other things.
“I remember opening one electrical cubicle door on an 87 when we moved it into the workshop and a huge amount of dark brown water just gushed out – the cubicle door seals had kept the water in, but the whole cubicle needed rewiring as nothing was salvageable. This sort of thing added a huge amount of cost to the project and was not uncommon–most of the 87s were in a very similar condition.” Despite the added complications of reactivating machines that had been stood out of use for so long, it was a project that would establish Glenn’s company in providing overhauled electric locomotives that could be exported for a further period of use.
When the Bulgarian Railway Company contract ended there were still several Class 87s left at Long Marston with an uncertain future. Europhoenix subsequently revived further 87s for another Bulgarian open access operator, Bulmarket, with a couple of the poorer condition examples sent for scrap after undergoing component recovery. The Class 87 design has proved its worth and many of the exported locomotives are still in regular use in Bulgaria.
Next came another classic British electric locomotive design – the Class 86. Again, declared surplus by UK train fleet modernisation, a large number of Class 86s had found their way into store at Long Marston after withdrawal by Virgin Trains and Anglia Railways in the early 2000s.
The Class 87 project had shown there was a business case for exporting refurbished electric locomotives which could find medium-term use with an overseas operator. Europhoenix bought all the remaining 86s in store at Long Marston and began a project to reactivate some of them for use in Hungary, with Hungarian open access operator Floyd. As with the Class 87s, rejuvenating the Class 86s was not a straightforward process, as many of them had been stored for several years by the time they were extracted from the storage lines and prepared for export. As well as the same electrical problems experienced with water damage, many had been subject to component removal, having many components compatible with other locomotive designs.
In many ways the Class 86 project for Floyd was a more intense project than the Bulgarian Railway Company Class 87s. The 86s were internally stripped down, had a number of electrical modifications, the vacuum braking system was completely removed, they were fitted with twin pantographs, the cabs were rebuilt and some external modifications were carried out to the cab fronts.
The level of work was extensive, but Glenn explained the company was very proud of the condition of the locomotives when they left Long Marston for the next chapter of their working lives.
The initial Class 86s prepared for Hungary have just undergone a 10 year rebuild by Floyd, which should ensure that they will remain in service for another decade with their Hungarian operator. By the time they are taken out of use, they will probably be approaching their 70th anniversary.
Some Class 86s were also exported for Bulgarian operator Bulmarket, which had also previously purchased former UK Class 87s. Most of the Class 86s exported for Bulmarket were prepared for their new life once they arrived in Bulgaria, rather than at Long Marston.
Having concentrated their efforts on exporting overhauled electric locomotives, the next locomotives to get the Europhoenix treatment were a pair of Class 56s, again for Hungarian operator Floyd. The operator approached Glenn to ask him if he could
source a powerful diesel locomotive design that could be used in Hungary.
DB Schenker was in the process of selling off a number of redundant Class 56s at the time and Glenn purchased three – 56096, 56115 and 56117 – before acquiring a fourth example, 56101, from the preservation sector. 56101 and 56115 were prepared for use with Floyd by Nemesis Rail at Burton, with 56117 also exported to Hungary at the same time. 56117 was originally intended to be prepared for service by Floyd after it had been exported, but it became a spares donor for the other two and has never been rebuilt.
Following its export to Hungary, 56115 was involved in a serious level crossing accident, which caused substantial damage to one of the cabs. As part of the repairs, a cab was removed from a stored UK Rail Leasing Class 56, 56106, at Leicester for fitting to the damaged locomotive, which has since returned to use with Floyd.
Glenn still supports his customers in Bulgaria and Hungary with their fleets and before the coronavirus pandemic generally made three working trips overseas each year to offer help and advice to the operators. Although he hasn’t been overseas during the past year and a half, he is looking forward to his next trip and seeing how his former charges are getting on with their respective operators.
The fourth Class 56, 56096, remained in the UK and was overhauled for Europhoenix by Boden Rail Engineering at Washwood Heath. The locomotive was painted into the company’s attractive grey livery before being re-registered for main line use, becoming the first Europhoenix locomotive to be registered for main line running in the UK for spot hire use.
However, 56096’s operational life as a Europhoenix loco was relatively short-lived, as it was soon sold on to Colas Railfreight and repainted into its orange, yellow and black colours. It remains an active member of the Colas operational Class 56 fleet.
Having now experienced the process of re-registering a locomotive for main line use in the UK and realising there was still a strong demand for spot hire locomotives, Glenn decided to enter into the market by purchasing two Class 37s that had been bought for scrapping by European Metal Recycling – 37800 and 37884 – following disposal by DB Cargo after a period in use on an infrastructure contract in Spain.
The original plan had been to overhaul the locomotives for the UK hire market and then investigate exporting the pair overseas, but as he didn’t have a customer lined up for hiring the locomotives it was decided to paint them into Europhoenix livery.
Glenn explains: “The Class 37s were bought as a stop gap to give us some work, but while 37884 was relatively good, in hindsight we probably shouldn’t have done 37800 because it was in such poor condition. A lot of money was spent reviving both locomotives, but 37800 needed much more work and time to bring it back to action.”
Agreement was subsequently reached for both Class 37s to be hired to the fledgling Rail Operations Group, with 37884 intended to be the main hire locomotive, with 37800 held as a spare in case 37884 was working
other services or stopped for maintenance. However, once 37800 was completed and recertified for main line use, it quickly became apparent that there was more than enough work to keep both locomotives busy on an almost permanent basis.
When Direct Rail Services (DRS) disposed of some of its Class 37 fleet, Europhoenix was successful in purchasing 37608 and 37611 from a tender issued by the operator, with 37601 and 37510 also purchased from DRS in the next tender to be issued by the company. While 37608 and 37611 were in reasonably good condition and were able to be put into service fairly quickly, 37601 was complete but in ‘tired’ condition, while 37510 was the worst of the quartet, having been robbed of several components after being taken out of service by DRS.
All six Class 37s are now on long term hire to ROG and although they are painted in Europhoenix colours, all now carry Rail Operations Group branding on their bodysides.
Since coming into the ownership of Europhoenix all of the 37s have now had the equivalent of a full rebuild to ensure they are in good condition. All have had extensive engine and bogie overhauls over the last three years, with Glenn explaining that the investment in them has been significant, but the company needs to have confidence that they will remain reliable for ROG.
Glenn says: “They haven’t had this level of attention since they went through Crewe Works in the 1980s. We have invested heavily in them because there is still a need for a good type three locomotive. Lots of operators are investing in brand new type five locomotives, but there is nothing to replace the type three and putting a Class 66 on a four-car EMU stock move is a bit too much, whereas it’s perfect for a Class 37.”
Stock moves has pretty much become the ‘bread and butter’ for the Europhoenix Class 37s operated by ROG, although the versatile locomotives are suited to a variety of other uses.
The next member of the Europhoenix fleet to return to the main line will be Mirrlees engine-fitted 37901 Mirrlees Pioneer (Railways Illustrated, September 2021), which may well have re-entered service by the time this feature appears in print. The locomotive, which is fitted with an engine similar to those which were fitted in the Class 60s, is returning to use under the auspices of Europhoenix. At the moment it is planned the locomotive will remain available for hire from Leicester, either on long or short term hire. It will not be joining its classmates on hire to ROG at the present time.
Asked about the rather unique nature of the Class 37/9 Glenn explained that all the parts for it are common to either the Class 37 or Class 60 design and the locomotive also came with a large quantity of spare parts when he bought it off Colas.
In 2018, Europhoenix bought four Class 37s from Colas – 37146, 37188, 37207 and 37901 – after Colas had abandoned plans to overhaul more 37s for main line use that had been purchased from the preservation sector. The four were assessed and it was quickly established that 37146 and 37188 would both be stripped for spares and scrapped once all reusable components had been recovered. Neither were in particularly good condition and would have cost a considerable sum to reactivate, so their true value was in the components they could yield. Engine and bogie components are the most useful spares, although Glenn explained that many of these parts often still need replacement when they are stripped down.
In the case of 37207, this had been the closest to returning to service when Colas abandoned
its overhaul, but had then exchanged its overhauled engine and bogies for use on another Colas 37, putting its chances of returning to use back down the queue.
Glenn explained that 37207 has been used as a spares donor while in the ownership of Europhoenix, but all components have been carefully removed, so that it can be reassembled. It is likely that Europhoenix will be selling this locomotive on to a new owner in the near future.
As rail companies look to make their locomotives more environmentally friendly, Glenn explained he is currently investigating hybrid technology, cleaner engine designs and synthetic fuels to improve the future operational prospects of the company’s fleet. He says: “If I am going to remain in the type three hire market I need to move with the times and look at more modern technology. The time will come where the current designs of diesel engines are unsuitable for use on an environmentally-aware network.”
At this stage it is unclear which locomotive could become the testbed for this technology as the company looks to improve its environmental footprint, while remaining an active player in the UK hire market, but should trials be successful, it is possible the other locomotives could also be modified.
Two other locomotives that came into the Europhoenix camp for export were former East Coast Class 91s, 91117 and 91120. The two locomotives were due to be exported to Hungary in early 2020, with road transport and a ferry booked to export the two 91s to Budapest.
But the ferry move was cancelled as the March 2020 lockdown approached and the planned export was put on ice.
However, the intended market the locomotives were due to serve in Hungary has been severely affected by the financial crisis caused by the pandemic and the 91s are currently no longer required for the job they had originally been earmarked for.
It is now planned that one of them may be exported to Hungary to undergo acceptance and commissioning trials over the coming months, as the rules in the country have changed surrounding locomotive acceptance significantly. The process to get a locomotive signed off for use in Hungary is now much more difficult than it was when the 86s were first exported over a decade ago.
Nothing is confirmed yet, but Glenn is still hopeful that both Class 91s will eventually make it to Hungary to start the next chapter in their working lives.
The company has recently purchased 08629 and the locomotive has now been delivered to Leicester Depot, immediately put to use as the depot pilot locomotive. 08629 will regain its former Wolverton name in the near future. Glenn says Europhoenix will always consider other locomotive designs for possible export, or for use on spot hire contracts in this country, but a lot will depend on when locomotives are offered for disposal and how other countries have recovered from the financial shock following the coronavirus pandemic.
The crisis has had such a profound outcome on many nations, not just in terms of human life, but also the huge economic shocks that have accompanied it.
In the 15 years the company has been active, it has made headlines for its work both overseas and in this country. It is clear that if Glenn Edwards has anything to do with it, Europhoenix will continue making headlines for a long time to come.
The Phoenix has risen.