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Whilst the first locomotive 60001 was handed over to BR on time and as scheduled
in June 1989, it was to be many months before the class would enter squadron
service with BR. Following the official "handing over" ceremonies on 30th June 1989, 60001 was hauled to the Railway Technical Centre (RTC) at Derby for thorough testing and evaluation by BR's in house technical team. In the specification and contract for the supply BR stipulated stringent warranty terms and acceptance terms, in brief, before being accepted by BR each locomotive had to perform 1000 miles of fault free running. Any fault that occurred during this time would result in either a return to Brush at Loughborough, or a visit from a Brush fitter to rectify the fault. In either case the 'acceptance process clock' was reset and the locomotive then had to perform a further 1000 miles of fault free running before being considered for acceptance.  One of the major faults with the locomotive that became apparent at a very early
stage in the testing process were problems with the microprocessor control
systems, and in particular the software, which failed to operate in the
specified manor.
In due course many more faults, defects and errors were found in the electronics and
microprocessor control systems, another major area of concern was the bogies and
in particular concern was
the suspension resulting in several modifications and testing before before the
design was accepted. In service however the bogies have proved to be relatively
trouble free. Further problems were also found with the snowplough design, and roof ducting,
all requiring design modification before the fleet was accepted into service, in
all the modifications took around 16 months to complete. It is reported that at
one point during the construction of the locomotives. It is often reported that
during the construction and acceptance phase after around 40 locomotives had
been built Railfreight and BR seriously considered cancelling the order, due to
the number of defects and warranty issues that were becoming apparent. It has
been suggested and and widely reported in the specialist media that in total
there were around 10'000 warranty defects on the fleet, an average of 100 per
locomotive. The difficulty encountered with the 60s contrasts starkly with the experience of the
Class 59s and later
class 66s which were unloaded and into traffic with a couple of weeks
following testing.The delays in the acceptance of the class 60 had a knock on effect throughout BR and in particular the Railfreight sector. The late delivery of the locomotives meant that the existing old locomotives have to be kept running longer than expected and a hurried package of overhauls were given to a small number of locomotives, whilst many long-in-the-tooth members of the class 20 fleet carried on in traffic on MGR duties. Depot training and driver training programmes were both hit with delays due to the problems in accepting the fleet however in January 1990 members of the fleet were noted in diverse places such as 60005 Skiddaw at Old Oak Common TMD, 60003 Christopher Wren at Stewarts Lane and 60006 Great Gable at Hither Green TMD. One of the most notable of these test trains was that which saw 60001 Steadfast and 60002 Capability Brown visit Inverness in June 1990. More information regarding test workings can be found by searching the logs on this site here. Page Last Updated 6th October 2010. |