European Railroad Discussion > New VR Sr3 Vectron on its way to Finland

The first VR Vectron has left the factory in Müchen on its way to Finland. Sr3 3302 is being shipped on 4 transfer skates. It left on January 2nd. The locomotive is being pulled by RailAdventure's Baureihe 103 locomotive with a match carriage on either end of the Vectron. The Green and White colors are reversed from those seen VR's Sr2 Lok2000 locomotives.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/03/16 06:17 by SOO6617.

Correct, it seems to be in Rostock now, waiting to be shipped to Hanko. To Helsinki the locomotive #3302 will be towed on Jan 7th. Stas should be able to picture it if he wishes.

Vectron will finally put stop to use of the Novocherkassk VL40 / Finnish class Sr1 "Wolves", which are already a couple of decades over their useful life (partly made of wood they must be very expensive to maintain). As Finland too has lots of places of small industries where wires don't reach...and forest industry locations where wires can't be installed as the freight cars are mainly loaded from above, two diesels and 350 kilonewtons / 79'000 lbf will help the new locomotive to crawl in and out of these places with sizable trains.

First "picture" is of the Finnish class Sr3 Vectron AC 64 hybrid (2 x180 kW diesels) (1524 mm gauge) and the second a much travelled class 193 which was used all over Finland to see that the locomotive fits there and to spot possible places to improve. Four units will first arrive in early 2016, then about 7 more if I remember right. Heard what the class 193 has been used I estimate Vectron starting to take over some duties, mainly on heavy passenger trains (no use of the double diesels there) by summer, numbers cascading slowly. Next they should start replacing some of the hundreds of forest industry services now run by ancient diesels and/or as ancient VL40.  

As soon as the ceritification is finished it is likely that FenniRail will also purchase a few of these machines, price being right. VR will also be soon facing forced taking of some of the rolling stock to get competition started...just what happened in Sweden in 2001 with excellent results. Cabinet ministers have aggreed on this move of rolling stock, but at the moment they are so busy with all kinds of more important issues that it might take a while before details are out.

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/03/16 12:01 by McKey.

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McKey Wrote:
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> Correct, it seems to be in Rostock now, waiting to
> be shipped to Hanko. To Helsinki the locomotive
> #3302 will be towed on Jan 7th. Stas should be
> able to picture it if he wishes.
Yes, that's interesting. I need info about the contact people in Hanko, and Helsinki.

Stas