The SNCF class BB 60000 are a class of 4 axle heavy shunting and light freight diesel electric locomotives built at the Vossloh Espana works in
Valencia
Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, Valencia and the Municipalities of Spain, third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is ...
. Since the class is primarily used as a freight locomotive the class is commonly referred to as SNCF BB460000.The prefix "4" used by FRET for freight locomotives
SNCF
The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (; abbreviated as SNCF ; French for "National society of French railroads") is France's national state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the country's national rail traffi ...
made an initial order for 160 locomotives in 2004. The manufacturer's designation is GA 1000 AS. Two further machines have been ordered (2009) by Egenie of France.
The class is not to be confused with the SNCF BB60000 prototypes from the 1950s and 1960s.
History
At the end of the 1990s SNCF was faced with a diesel locomotive fleet of which the larger part was older than 30 years, and thus fuel-consuming and expensive in maintenance. Some locomotive classes were re-engined (BB66400 in BB69400, CC72000 in CC72100) to overcome some of the problems on the short term. In the longer term however, new locomotives had to be ordered as also the re-engined locomotives would reach the end of their useful age.
An initial plan saw 69 medium-power locomotives (together with the SBB) and 55 high-power locomotives ordered. This plan was intensively modified, and eventually 160 low-power shunting locomotives (SNCF BB460000) and 400 medium-power locomotives (see BB475000) were ordered.
For the low-power shunting locomotives there were 3 biddings: Vossloh offered the G1000BB, the Italian firm
Firema
Titagarh Wagons Limited is an Indian shipbuilder, defense, railway wagon manufacturer headquartered in Kolkata, West Bengal. The company manufactures coaches for the Indian Railways, bailey bridges, and mining equipment. A subsidiary, Titagarh M ...
the D146 locomotive and Alstom with an enhanced version of the
Caterpillar
Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths).
As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Sym ...
due to financial reasons.
In October 2008 SNCF ordered an additional 15 locomotives for its Infrastructure division. These locomotives will be numbered in the 660000 series.,The prefix "6" is used by the infrastructure division (''SNCF Infra'') for its locomotives and will be painted in the yellow and grey Infrastructure livery.
Design and construction
Initially SNCF wanted to buy a "catalog" locomotive, i.e. a standardised locomotive type without too many changes. Alstom proposed an enhanced version of the
SBB Am841
The SBB-CFF-FFS Am 841 was built at the Meinfesa locomotive plant in Albuixech, Spain in 1994.alternator
An alternator is an electrical generator that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy in the form of alternating current. For reasons of cost and simplicity, most alternators use a rotating magnetic field with a stationary armature.Go ...
, while the shorter one houses the electrical and brake equipment.
The cabin is rounder than the SBB Am841 from which it is derived. It has 2 full control desks and is equipped with air-conditioning.
Bogie
A bogie ( ) (in some senses called a truck in North American English) is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transp ...
s are the same as its predecessors and have primary (coil springs with ''Silentbloc'', plus vertical shock absorbers) and secondary ("Sandwich" blocs) suspension. There are two traction motors per bogie powered by
IGBT
An insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) is a three-terminal power semiconductor device primarily used as an electronic switch, which, as it was developed, came to combine high efficiency and fast switching. It consists of four alternating lay ...
based electronics. Brake equipment only consists of wheel brakes which are equipped with plastic brake pads.
The locomotives were built by Vossloh Espana, the electrical transmission (generator, rectifier,
IGBT
An insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) is a three-terminal power semiconductor device primarily used as an electronic switch, which, as it was developed, came to combine high efficiency and fast switching. It consists of four alternating lay ...
inverters, traction motors) was supplied by Alstom.
Career
After a homologation period of 2 years the first locomotives were delivered in late 2006. They faced some problems teething problems such as inadequate brake pads, causing unreliable shunting operations, and unwanted shocks caused by the locomotive's software. The first ten locomotives were retrofitted by Vossloh. The rest were delivered with the modifications.
All locomotives are allocated to the depot of Sotteville, nowadays known as the EIMM Normandie. This is their home depot however the locos work elsewhere in France and are maintained locally returning to their main depot of Sotteville only for major overhauls or modifications. Spheres of operation from 2010 are Paris (Le Bourget, Villeneuve St Georges, Trappes, Montereau, Chartres) Rennes, St Pierre de Corps, Bordeaux, Hendaye, Picardie region and Nord-Pas de Calais region.
They cover heavy shunting and local trip work. For example, the Nord Pas-de Calais operate 14 non-nominated locomotives based for local maintenance at Lens and operating from Somain, Lille Delivrance and Dunkerque. Two locomotives in multiple-working are capable of hauling over 3,500 tonnes on the Lestrem branch line from Armentieres served from Lille Delivrance yard.
One unit has been used for SNCF's ''"Zéro pétrole"'' project (first decade 2000), and tested for operations using a 100% biodiesel derived fuel.
See also
*
SBB Am841
The SBB-CFF-FFS Am 841 was built at the Meinfesa locomotive plant in Albuixech, Spain in 1994.GA DE900, and RENFE 311: earlier locomotives from the same factory to a similar design.
* SNCF BB 75000: higher powered mainline diesel locomotives ordered in the same period.
60000
60,000 (sixty thousand) is the natural number that comes after 59,999 and before 60,001. It is a round number. It is the value of \varphi( F25).
Selected numbers in the range 60,000–69,999
60,001 to 60,999
* 60,049 = Leyland number
* 60,101 ...