European Railroad Discussion > Last of the Mohicans...

Well, the last built class 66 in the UK/Europe!

Yesterday I noticed an unusual freight train was scheduled to run south on the west coast mainline, empty oil tankers running all the way from Ayrshire, near Glasgow in Scotland to a freight terminal south of London. When I checked the schedule today I saw that it was being pulled by the very last-built class 66, GBRf no. 66689. This loco was built as 66789 and was painted in old BR green livery (complete with cab bell) and named 'Evening Star', a name also carried by the last-built British Rail steam locomotive in the 1960s.

66789 was renumbered recently to 66689 when it was re-geared for higher tractive effort. I caught it this afternoon, just south of Crewe, with the train still having another 7 hours before getting to its destination, that's a long journey in the UK!
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Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/26 10:12 by exhaustED.

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Nice catch, been a while since it's been on my patch. Must be the empty aviation tanks from Prestwick to Grain.  Chris uk.

Nice shot!