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Six firms were invited to
tender for the contract to build the Class 60. When bids closed on
November 7th 1987, only three positive bids had been
received, the remainder declining to respond. The three companies
who replied to BR's invitation were Metro-Cammell, Brush Electrical
Machines Ltd and GEC Transportations Ltd. Metro-Cammell or Met-Cam (now part of the Alstom Group) being an assembler submitted a package-type deal offering different permutations of main components. In effect this meant that BR could have a certain type of power unit with a specified type of traction motor, within a specific body etc. Metro-Cammell were to simply provide the specified bodyshell and assemble the components from other manufacturers. Perhaps expectedly this bid more or less fell at the first hurdle. The idea of various components from different companies, which were untried and untested when assembled together, were considered too much of a risk in such a high value project. Brush Electrical Machines or Brush Traction as they are more commonly known were already well established in the field of locomotive building and also well known to BR having been a traction supplier to the company from the 1950s. However the Brush bid was to cause some concern as well - They were offering two types of power unit - the eventual Mirrlees 8MB275T with a single turbocharger and a Ruston unit, but they were pinning all their hopes on the separately excited ' Sepex ' traction motor control equipment. At that time it was being evaluated on Class 58, No. 58058 and this is where the concern arose. 58050 had standard traction motors fitted, not ones which were specially designed for the ' Sepex ' equipment, thereby rendering any test results a little vague. However Brush did quote an extremely short delivery period of only 13 months, a deadline that was, in the event met. GEC Transportations bid was at the time considered to be streets ahead of anything else and considered to be the firm favourite, the bid was made in association with General Motors - designers and manufacturers of the Class 59 which BR had been so impressed with and prompted what was to become the Class 60 project. However for political reasons - General Motors (probably correctly) did not think that the British Government of the time would want to be seen placing such large orders paid for with pubic money with foreign companies, especially given the tough time the British economy and manufacturing was having at the time.  So with this in mind General Motors had formed a mutual link with GEC Transportations
in the UK,
offering what the Americans thought would be a better more palatable foothold in
the British locomotive building industry. GM took the view that the
government was unlikely to let BR buy as many as 100 foreign built
locos, so to overcome this problem they would become associated with
a British company, who in turn would become the main contractor
assembling the locomotives in the UK which would be supplied in kit form.
Therefore this
bid was based on GM's Class 59, modified to comply with the Class 60
specifications. The Class 59 was already a well proven and reliable product with all the required features that BR stipulated. The one area where the plans were deviated from was in the cab shape. Basically they offered an externally cleaned up version of the Class 59. It is interesting to note that although Brush were offering the GEC designed and built Ruston engine in their bid, GEC had opted for the EMD/GM diesel for theirs. What was not widely known at the time, was that a small team of engineers from BREL at Crewe had already been to GM's La Grange plant in Chicago to assess manufacturing techniques in the hope they would be sub-contracted to assemble the new locomotive back in the UK. This arrangement was already in place between GEC and BREL for the Class 91 which were assembled at BREL's Crewe Works. Another interesting point is that had this bid been accepted then the Class 60 would look like what is now designated the Class 66. On 17th May 1988 it was announced to parliament by the then Secretary of State for Transport, Mr Paul Channon that the order, worth £120million that had been won Brush Electrical Machines Ltd. It was further announced that the Locomotives would be fitted with the Mirrlees 8-cylinder MB275 power unit, the larger version of the units currently on trial inside four of the class 37/9 "slugs". It was anticipated that delivery would commence in June 1989 - 13months hence and would be complete by the end of 1991. Page Last Updated: July 2008 |