"Lok 2000" in China
Derivatives of the SBB/BLS Re460/465 locomotives have been purchased by a number of railway companies but I think that the two owned by KCR East Rail in Hong Kong are the greatest distance from "home". The locos are used on the KCR Through Train (Ktt) between Hung Hom (Kowloon) and Guangzhou East where they "top and tail" a set of 8 (*) bi-level cars built in Japan by Kinki Sharyo. The specification is basically a combination of the BLS Re465 and those constructed for Norway and Finland. Although very similar in appearance to the SBB/BLS locos the KCR version is designed to operate from an electrical supply of 25 kV, 50 Hz and the drivers desk is on the right-hand side. It is fitted with a centre automatic coupler, has no buffers and has slightly modified underframe covers. The KCR locos are not fitted with the permanent magnetic braking system found on other versions. The two locomotives are numbered in a rather unusual but logical way. TLN 001 is attached to the northern (Guangzhou) end of the train and TLS 002 is attached to the southern (Hong Kong) end and these positions are reflected in the running numbers carried.
T = Through Train, L = Locomotive, N = North, S = South, 001 and 002 = Loco number
(*) When I photographed it in July 2000 the Ktt service only had 7 cars although I believe that it was originally planned to operate it as an 8 car train with 6 first class and 2 premium class cars. This would effectively be two 4 car sets coupled together with the premium class cars in the centre. The 4 car sets can be operated independently using just one loco but this is very unusual.
The photos were taken on 28/7/2000 at Tai Wai station in the suburbs of Kowloon. The station is served by frequent commuter trains and the density of traffic is such that the expresses hauled by these Swiss locos suffer many signal checks and are often reduced to a crawl.
In 1999, Kato produced a limited edition N-scale model of one of these trains and I will be featuring a review of it shortly.
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Loco TLN 001 |
Loco TLS 002 |
Loco TLN 001 |
