Vossloh Euro - History and Background

History and Background

At the beginning of the 2000s numerous private train operators emerged in mainland Europe, as open-access freight operation was already granted in some European countries before complete liberalization in 2012. These mainly used second-hand diesel locomotives formerly in use with the state railways of the respective country, or new medium-powered diesel locomotives like the Class 66 or Vossloh G2000. With the success of these operators rising and trains getting heavier, the need of a complete new high-powered diesel locomotive series was becoming high, especially for cross-border freight traffic where absence of, or changes in electrification voltage made electric traction impossible or problematic.

Primarily due to environmental issues and high costs, developments for such a new locomotive series were pushed back whenever possible. In the mid-2000s development of a new series finally seemed economically viable; becoming part of Alstom's locomotive programme Prima. Development of the programme was started under Alstom supervision, but as the Alstom Valencia plant was bought by Vossloh this series got the Vossloh name: Vossloh Euro.

The family can be traced back to the Electro-Motive Diesel engined, Valencia built JT 42BW, JT 42CW and JT 42HW-HS family which were built in various configurations (including 4 and 6 axle variants) for both Israel Railways and English, Welsh and Scottish Railway (as the Class 67); these locomotives used the same GM-EMD engines and traction motors and had similar body shells to the products later built at the Valencia plant under Vossloh's ownership.

In 2004 the Valencia plant left Alstom ownership and was bought by Vossloh; because of this change of ownership there are many similarities between the Vossloh Euro locomotives, the Alsthom/GM-EMD JT42 locomotives.

After the change of ownership the next product to roll off the lines at Valencia was the RENFE 334 class of locomotives which are (excluding minor differences) Iberian gauge versions of the later Vossloh Euro locomotives.