The second use of the

TOPS Total Operations Processing System (TOPS) is a computer system for managing railway locomotives and rolling stock, known for many years of use in the United Kingdom. TOPS was originally developed between the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP), S ...

classification Class 21 for locomotives used on the British railway network came through the use of a number of related

diesel-hydraulic A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving wheels ...

and diesel-electric locomotives procured following the opening of the

Channel Tunnel The Channel Tunnel (french: Tunnel sous la Manche), also known as the Chunnel, is a railway tunnel that connects Folkestone (Kent, England, UK) with Coquelles ( Hauts-de-France, France) beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. ...

. The total of 16 locomotives were obtained by two separate operators, with some used for freight, and others to propel service trains and as "Thunderbird" locomotives.

History

In the early 1980s,

Maschinenbau Kiel Maschinenbau Kiel GmbH designed, manufactured and marketed marine diesel engines, diesel locomotives and tracked vehicles under the MaK brand name. The three primary operating divisions of Maschinenbau Kiel GmbH were sold to different companies ...

introduced its

MaK DE 1002 The MaK DE 1002 is a class of 4 axle Bo′Bo′ diesel-electric locomotives built by Maschinenbau Kiel in association with Brown, Boveri & Cie (later ABB Group ABB Ltd. is a Swedish- Swiss multinational corporation headquartered in Zürich ...

design of diesel-electric locomotive, which was chosen by

Nederlandse Spoorwegen Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS; ; en, "Dutch Railways") is the principal passenger railway operator in the Netherlands. It is a Dutch state-owned company founded in 1938. The Dutch rail network is one of the busiest in the European Union, and the ...

as the basis of its Class 6400 freight locomotive. In 1991,

Eurotunnel Getlink, formerly Groupe Eurotunnel, is a European public company based in Paris that manages and operates the infrastructure of the Channel Tunnel between England and France, operates the Eurotunnel Shuttle train service, and earns revenue on ...

procured five similar locomotives as its Class 0001, for use both to operate service trains through the Channel Tunnel and as rescue locomotives. In 2005,

Euro Cargo Rail DB Cargo France is a French rail freight operator. It is presently a subsidiary of the German state-owned logistics company DB Cargo. DB Cargo France was originally established as Euro Cargo Rail (ECR) in early 2005 by the British freight comp ...

(ECR) was formed as a freight operator in France by English, Welsh and Scottish Railway (EWS). Its initial operations were carried out by a quartet of

Vossloh G1206 The Vossloh G1206 is a B'B' diesel hydraulic freight locomotive built in Kiel and used by several European railway operators including a SNCF specific variant the BB 461000 series. The design was created in the mid-1990s by Maschinenbau Kiel ( ...

diesel-hydraulic locomotives. Although these locomotives were intended for use in France, maintenance was planned to be carried out at EWS's depot at Dollands Moor, close to the Eurotunnel terminal at Cheriton. Because the locomotives would be operating on railways in Great Britain, they were allocated numbers in the TOPS system as Class 21. Two similar

G1000 The Garmin G1000 is an electronic flight instrument system (EFIS) typically composed of two display units, one serving as a primary flight display, and one as a multi-function display A multifunction display (MFD) is a small-screen ( CRT ...

locomotives were procured in 2007. In 2009, Eurotunnel's five locomotives were used extensively for rescue operations following severe snow. As a consequence, the company identified a need to have greater availability of these units, and so procured a pair of Class 6400 locomotives from DB Schenker Nederland in November 2010. At the same time, Eurotunnel registered its locomotives on TOPS - the superficial similarity to the ECR locomotives led to the Eurotunnel units also being assigned as Class 21. Eurotunnel acquired a further three secondhand units from the Netherlands in 2016.

Fleet details

References

{{British Rail Locomotives 21 Bo-Bo locomotives MaK locomotives Vossloh locomotives Standard gauge locomotives of Great Britain Standard gauge locomotives of France Diesel-electric locomotives of France Diesel-electric locomotives of Great Britain Railway locomotives introduced in 1990 Railway locomotives introduced in 2005