PKP Class EU06 - History

History

In 1936–38 the Contractors' Committee, a joint venture of Metropolitan-Vickers and English Electric, had supplied six 1,200 brake horsepower (890 kW) electric locomotives and 80 three-car electric multiple units for the electrification of Warsaw suburban services. British Insulated Cables supplied the overhead line equipment. In 1945 British Insulated merged with a competitor to become British Insulated Callender's Cables, and in 1949 Metropolitan-Vickers, English Electric and BICC contracts to replace locomotives, EMUs and equipment damaged in the Second World War.

In the early 1950s PKP urgently wanted mixed-traffic electric locomotives for the rapid electrification of Poland's railways. ET21 freight locomotives were already in production under a Soviet license but there was a lack of passenger locomotives. The plan was to buy several items of foreign-built locomotives and a license and start domestic production afterwards.

In 1956 talks with companies from Austria and Switzerland started, but were broken off soon after. In June 1959 Poland awarded a new contract to for overhead electrification and 20 locomotives to the Contractors' Committee, which now included BICC as well as AEI Traction and English Electric. The contract included a licence agreement for Poland to manufacture 2,000 tons of copper contact wire, enough to electrify 1,450 miles (2,330 kilometres) of railway.

Not all electric devices were included in the licence agreement. EU06 locomotives are roughly similar to the British Rail Class 83 mechanically, which were built by English Electric at Vulcan Foundry, Newton-le-Willows in the UK, in the same period; electrically the layout and equipment was similar to classes 5E/5E1/6E/6E1 operating on South African Railway.

The first EU06 locomotive was delivered to Poland early in 1962 and after series of trials it was assigned to Kraków Prokocim depot. Seven locomotives had been delivered by the end of April 1962 and 19 by the end of the year. Delivery of the last locomotive was delayed until 1965 by failures of the armature. The locomotives were operated on all lines serviced by Kraków Prokocim depot.

Class EU06 was an innovative design that became a milestone in Polish motive power construction. Along with the EU07, a similar locomotive class built in Poland under licence by Pafawag in Wroclaw and Ciegielski in Poznan, almost 500 locomotives were built. EU07 locomotives were also used to build the duplex freight locomotives of PKP class ET41. Several construction innovations from class EU06 were introduced into later classes such as EP08, ET22 and EP09. 14 units of EU06 are still in service, but withdrawal of this series is being considered.