Home»All Photograph Galleries»Bienvenido De Nuevo Locomotoras Ingesas De Espana - Return Of The 37's

In English, meaning; Welcome back English locomotives from Spain.

After a good time abroad, around the 11 year mark, the 37's are back, to a very different railway to which they left. Of the 14 that went just six return to Dollands Moor. Which are all photographed and featured here in this gallery collection. These being;

L34 - 37884
L33 - 37800
L26 - 37714
L25 - 37703
L23 - 37716
L22 - 37718

All saw their last use building a high speed line between Barcelona and Girona before being stored in early 2011 at the Adif base of Hostalric.

DBS then offered them for sale to which HNRC bought four, while for 37703/714/716/718.

The other two 37's; 37800 and 37884 were bought by EMR at Kingsbury however.

Clear enough, alas not. While 37800 and 37884 remained owned by EMR, HNRC pulled out of the sale of 37703/714/716/718. So once again the locomotives were put up for sale. This time their buyer being DRS, who, removed all four by road, with 37703 and 37714 to Barrow Hill and 37716 and 37718 to Derby all for overhaul and a return to use with the firm. As for 37884 and 37800 their story also didn't end, as they were purchased by Europhoenix, for hire in the UK, a strong contender for their use being Colas Railfreight. Never the less these two moved by rail to Washwood Heath, where, with 37884 being worked on first, followed by 37800, repairs and a return to the mainline began.

Lucky six, it would appear so indeed...

Unfortunately their storage at Hostalric saw the locals add some art work (a teddy being quite popular) to the locos, so, their clean on one side and a right mess the other, however the original livery was that of GIF - Similar to EWS in layout, though light blue with a dark blue stripe. GIF letters and 'L' number in white on the blue stripe, finally the 'L' number on the front of the loco. However this livery; since GIF was taken over by Continental Rail; this saw the removal of GIF branding and the 'L' number from the side, and small blue Continental Rail branding applied on cabsides and on the nose, so a unique livery by all means and rarely photographed. The 'clean' side of this livery can now be viewed in later collections, as I photographed the DRS four being removed by road from Dollands Moor.

So welcome back, for me, a personal matter of getting these having gone to Hostalric in Spain a week after the 37's had moved to the French boarder. Typical. So nice to finally catch up with the last refurbs for me to photograph. 37884 holding memories, being the first ever 37 I saw as a nipper and didn't get a photo of it, in the end 37884 was one of the last.

Also present at Dollands Moor today were DBSchenker 92016, 92019, 92031 and 92041. While a repainted 59204 is also seen at Acton in DBSchenker livery.

***Please feel free to ask about any details on the locos/photos I'm happy to help as I'm aware these are currently 'in the news'***

For completion of the original 14 the Spanish managed to write-off 37885, 37899, 37802 and 37888 in accidents and give 37702 a major power unit failure, these five were then scrapped in Spain.

37799 and 37801 were in early 2011 sold for Scrap in Spain, 37883 sold privately and then also, for scrap. These three were stored out of use at VilaFranca having worked on a Madrid-Barcelona line, and never worked with the other six based off Hostalric. In December of 2011 37799, 37801 and 37883 were at VilaFranca removed from their bogies, which were retained by DBS, and moved by road to a local scrap yard in Barcelona and scrapped.

Fleet Numbers, not clearly explained to most, is that the 'L' number series, for the 37's from L21 to L34 was not carried out in numerical order of the locos numbers. It was instead the order that they were refurbished by the then EWS, and sent to France, hence the following results:

Those 'safe' back in the UK:

37703 - L25
37714 - L26
37716 - L23
37718 - L22
37800 - L33
37884 ' L34

Those stored at VilaFranca, then since scrapped:

37799 - L27
37801 - L29
37883 - L28

Scrapped due to accidents:

37702 - L30 (Serious alternator failure)
37802 - L32 (Run away, collided with a rail crane)
37885 - L24 (Run away with 37899, derailed)
37888 - L31 (Run away, collided with a track machine)
37899 - L21 (Run away with 37885, derailed)

37802, 37885 and 37899 all scrapped in/around July 2003 while 37702 and 37888 were sold on and scrapped some time around 2007/2008, with 37799/801/883 being scrapped in late 2011.



Enjoy! :)