The 86 class is a class of electric locomotives built by
Comeng,
Granville for the
State Rail Authority
The State Rail Authority, a former statutory authority of the Government of New South Wales, operated and maintained railways in the Australian state of New South Wales from July 1980 until December 2003.
History
The ''Transport Authorities Ac ...
of New South Wales.
History
The 86 class initially hauled passenger and freight services to
Lithgow on the
Main Western line and
Wyong
Wyong () is a town in the Central Coast of New South Wales, located approximately 63 km SSW of Newcastle and 89 km NNE of Sydney. Established in 1888, it is one of the two administrative centres for the local government area.
Hist ...
on the
Main Northern line. Their sphere of operation extended to
Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to:
*Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England
*Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England
*Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...
on the latter line in June 1984 and to
Port Kembla
A port is a maritime law, maritime facility comprising one or more Wharf, wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge Affreightment, cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can a ...
in January 1986 when the
Illawarra line was electrified.
With a one-hour rating of 4,400 horsepower (hp), the 86 class was the most powerful locomotive in Australia at the time. Although no longer in regular use, the class remains among the most powerful in the country. Despite their higher power rating, they were generally regarded as inferior to the
Metropolitan-Vickers
Metropolitan-Vickers, Metrovick, or Metrovicks, was a British heavy electrical engineering company of the early-to-mid 20th century formerly known as British Westinghouse. Highly diversified, it was particularly well known for its industrial el ...
built
46 class, which dated from the late 1950s.
The last, 8650 was delivered as a
Bo-Bo-Bo trial unit. It spent long periods out of traffic undergoing repair.
In 1994/95 all were repainted by
A Goninan & Co,
Taree
Taree is a town on the Mid North Coast, New South Wales, Australia. Taree and nearby Cundletown were settled in 1831 by William Wynter. Since then Taree has grown to a population of 26,381, and is the centre of a significant agricultural distr ...
into
FreightCorp
FreightCorp (formally the ''Freight Rail Corporation'') was a railway operator owned by the Government of New South Wales responsible for intrastate and some interstate rail cargo handling from its creation in January 1989 until it was privatis ...
blue. By October 1997 18 had been withdrawn from service with cracked frames. By this stage the amount of work requiring electrics was reducing.
National Rail
National Rail (NR) is the trading name licensed for use by the Rail Delivery Group, an unincorporated association whose membership consists of the passenger train operating companies (TOCs) of England, Scotland, and Wales. The TOCs run the ...
decided it would through haul its services and from March 1998 FreightCorp ceased operating them on Main Northern line services. The need for electrics continued to decline with their remaining duties mainly being hauling coal trains from Lithgow to Port Kembla. The last examples were withdrawn in June 2002.
In 2002, most were sold to
Silverton Rail and taken to
Broken Hill then sold again in February 2006 to
Allco Finance Group
Allco Financial Group was a fully integrated global financial services business, listed on the Australian Stock Exchange and headquartered in Sydney. Major services provided were structured asset finance, funds management and debt and equity fun ...
with some on sold, but most scrapped.
86 Class
Vicsig Four were leased back to RailCorp
Rail Corporation New South Wales (RailCorp) was an agency of the State of New South Wales, Australia established under the ''Transport Administration Act 1988'' in 2004. It was a division under the control of Transport for NSW since the latter' ...
in 2004 (8601, 8609, 8622 and 8644) for use on infrastructure trains during construction of the Bondi Junction turnback.
Survivors
References
Further reading
*
External links
{{NSWLocos, state=collapsed
Bo-Bo-Bo locomotives
Co-Co locomotives
Commonwealth Engineering locomotives
Electric locomotives of New South Wales
Railway locomotives introduced in 1983
Standard gauge locomotives of Australia
1500 V DC locomotives