Loco update - March 2024

Latest DB90 to join Johnson Street IEMD

90035 was one of DB's active 90s during their tenure of the contract to provide traction for MALCOLM Group. 90035 was, during this time, repainted from tired EWS livery with faded decals into new DB red but unlike matching classmates 90019 and 90028 wasn't named. 

One of my first DB90s to join my fleet was 90028, named Sir William McAlpine, nicknamed "Bill", named at York's National Railway Museum Museum in early 2019, seen below at this event, a Class 90 on a turntable, an unusual sight for an electric locomotive.

This, following on nicely from Multimodal (90019)'s appearance inside the NEC exhibition centre, for the Multimodal logistics trade show in 2016, seen below, 

90035, now into DB red went off to join an electrification testing project team on the Great Western mainline (GWML) electrification project, seen below:

This was then followed up by 90035 being seconded for similar work, again as part of a consist for the Midland mainline (MML) electrification project.

At the end of this project, 90035, fondly nicknamed CB Hall on my YouTube channel returned to Crewe International Electric Maintenance Depot (Crewe IEMD) for pantograph conversion work ahead of a return to traffic most notably on MALCOLM workings, seen on the last leg, thank you to Youtuber Angel Of Crewe:

90035 working on MALCOLM post GWML / MML work:

Having already acquired Bill and Multimodal for Johnson Street IEMD, the first Bachmann DB90 to be unveiled two years and several seasonal release windows after the first Class 90s were launched in the summer of 2019, inevitably this was always going to be one I already had commissioned and so it was with Bill. 

With Multimodal having also been sourced, I left "New Bill - 32-616NRM" off my priority radar, now though with this coming to a more sensible price point, he's been acquired. 

Changing Identity

One of my existing DB Cargo red 90s will be unnamed and renumbered into 90035 - a nice job for the magician 🎩 he knows who is. New Bill just needs a weathering.