European Railroad Discussion > Engine Information Please

   I took this picture at Vass, Norway a week or so ago.  Since I'm totally unfamiliar with European motive power, can someone give me some information about this engine as to class, horsepower, weight, or anything else.
   Thanks in advance.

Brian Black
Castle Rock, CO.

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tehachcond Wrote:
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>    I took this picture at Vass, Norway a week or
> so ago.  Since I'm totally unfamiliar with
> European motive power, can someone give me some
> information about this engine as to class,
> horsepower, weight, or anything else.
>    Thanks in advance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSB_El_18

This is the Norwegian State Railways (NSB) El 18, based on the Swiss SBB 460. A great website for contemporary European electric locomotives is www.railcolor.net Go to the list of manufacturers on the left-hand side and under "Bombardier", look under "1992: LOK2000"

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/15 21:18 by Alexmarissa.

Funny how the thread system can hide information on this forum, this was "What is it where is it" just two weeks ago :) And several times during the last year of so.

I try to write on this interesting modern multipurpose locomotive design regularly, every half a year or so, because of hundreds of locos around, and very much in use, both for passenger and freight.

In 1980s Swiss Railways SBB and builders ?ABB or BBC? saw their locomotive designs falling behind and as a result LOK2000 program (and modernization program of railways in general) wa set up. Designs were finished in 1990s and the batch production could start after thorough testing. 

In the first set of pictures Re4/4 and Re6/6 (classified as 620 in picture) so you can see what the locomotives back then were. Third picture shows one of the typical usage a little earlier. Neither of the locomotives had the necessary pulling power so "Re10/10" (10 axles Bo' , 10 axles pulling) was used. 

For more pics on this design please see: http://www.4rail.net/reference_switzerland_gallery2.php
Pictures by Ilkka, Sanna and Andreas.




 

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First locomotives were built for SBB (Swiss Railways) and BLS (traditional Swiss private operator). For SBB the LOK2000 is classified as Swiss Re360 and for BLS Re465.

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Finnish (VR-Yhtymä) and Norwegian (NSB) Railways were quick to follow. In Finland this is VR class Sr2 and in Norway NSB class El18 (spelled as E_-1-8, not 1)

 
 

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NSB so far has had two main color schemes, as shown below. Your find at the topmost picture is great! No other black-silver colored El18 pic seems to exist yet. Most repainted locomotives come out red-silver, being alike to NSB EMUs new scheme. At least one newly painted unit has a neat looking scenery on its side. 2 - 3 locomotives according to Norwegian internal reports are running for CargoNet (Norwegian state railways freight branch). Traditionally many El18 are hired, when there is surplus locomotion, to Swedish operators for lumber hauling. So keep your eayes open in Sweden too for these locos. 

In Switzerland, Finland and Norway the LOK2000s are going through midlife refurbishing. Among other things there is an upgrade to wheel slip system, which earlier lead to extensive wear on wheels and higher than desired operating costs. Of course the draw back is that the locomotive light stall with a heavy train, but experiences driver can override this but manually controlling the slipping in this situation.

Expect LOK2000 to be around for another 50 years or so!  

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The "Lok 2000" name for this Locomotive comes from the Swiss "Bahn 2000" program to improve their regular interval timetable(Taktfahrplan) so that major nodes were served on the hour and connections could be made, which would enable maximum connectivity through across platform transfers at major stations. The most important problem was Zürich to Bern which took more than an hour, and needed to be cut to under an hour. To do this the SBB built a Neubaustrecke from Matstettin to Rothrist near Olten. This NBS was Engineered for 200 kph speeds. The class Re 6/6 (now Re620) had sufficient power, but it was limited to a top speed of 140 kph. So ADtranz developed the Lok 2000 design for the Bahn 2000 railway. The locomotive was assembled in the ADtranz factory in Zürich's Oerlikon district with bodies from SLM in Winterthur or Kraus-Maffei in München. ABB had sold their locomotive building business to Daimler AG by this time as ADtranz. ABB did and still does supply the transformers, but all the other electrical and mechanical technology was sold to ADtranz, along with the factories. Financial performance of ADtranz was not up to Daimler's expectations and they later sold the company to Bombardier.

At least in the Nordic countries these locomotives have been very reliable, and not afraid of the winter weather. I suppose the case is same in Switzerland too? Do the locos ever run to Germany or Austria with the same 15 kV 16,7 Hz overhead electricity as Switzerland? Or do the units maybe carry wrong kind of pantograph for this?

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McKey Wrote:
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> Or do the units maybe
> carry wrong kind of pantograph for this?

They only are equipped with the narrower width Swiss pantograph. For the same reason the DB 101 and 120 class locomotives can operate no further than Basel SBB station because of their wider German pantographs. Well they would be allowed as far east in Switzerland as Pratteln station, but that is not really useful. At the first tunnel in Switzerland the wider pantograph would hit the roof of the tunnel and be ripped off.

SOO6617 Wrote:
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>
> They only are equipped with the narrower width
> Swiss pantograph. For the same reason the DB 101
> and 120 class locomotives can operate no further
> than Basel SBB station because of their wider
> German pantographs. Well they would be allowed as
> far east in Switzerland as Pratteln station, but
> that is not really useful. At the first tunnel in
> Switzerland the wider pantograph would hit the
> roof of the tunnel and be ripped off.

Ditto for Austria (since DB and OBB seem to have nearly full interoperability).

What about Budapest/Vienna-Zurich RJ services?  I'm guessing the class 1116/1216 locomotives on the service change pantographs during the change in direction stop in Buchs?

chs7-321 Wrote:
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> Ditto for Austria (since DB and OBB seem to have
> nearly full interoperability).
>
> What about Budapest/Vienna-Zurich RJ services? 
> I'm guessing the class 1116/1216 locomotives on
> the service change pantographs during the change
> in direction stop in Buchs?

For Budapest - Vienna the DB / OBB pantograph is ok, since the MAV adapted their catenary.

Erwin from Austria