History

The last locomotives to be totally designed and built by British Rail at Doncaster Works, this small fleet of 50 locomotives were intended to be the first of many orders for the locomotives. A breakthrough in terms of locomotive design, they were a modular concept which was intended to minimise locomotive downtime. Fully accessible through the side doors, this design, built between 1983 and 1987 was intended to attract orders from abroad. The design was such that complete modules of the loco such as an electrical cubicle could be replaced in one go by a spare unit that was held at a depot until needed to minimise loco downtime. Intended as freight only locomotives, they were fitted with air brakes only, slow speed control for coal trains and no train heat. 58001 was unveiled at Crewe in December 1983.

Allocated to Toton depot, the first nine locomotives entered service in February 1984 working Merry Go Round (MGR) coal trains in the Midlands region supplementing the Class 56s. Allocation to Toton was considered ideal as it was a central depot for a loco which, in reality, could be anywhere on the network. Occasional use on scheduled passenger services has taken place, most notably on the Birmingham/Wolverhampton-Nuneaton 'drags' when the Rugby-Coventry section of the West Coast Main Line was blocked by engineering works. The obvious lack of ETH and limited speed has helped restrict these duties

The takeover of all three part-privatised companies by EWS took place, with the Class 58s one again becoming a national fleet seeing use from Scotland down to Devon. EWS, at the time of the takeover, stating that the Class 58s were the most reliable out of the fleet, started an overhaul programme for the locos at Doncaster Works with the first loco being 58033 - also the first to receive the now common EWS red and gold livery. Overhauls continued until delivery of the Class 66s with the final loco overhauled at Doncaster being - appropriately - 58050.

As the Class 66s deliveries continued, overhauls stopped and the first loco - 58017 - was placed into storage at Doncaster depot in April 1999. At the time it was claimed by EWS to be a move to minimise maintenance costs for the fleet until the 66s had settled down and the whole loco fleet could be re-assessed with a view to restarting overhauls. Loco storages continued with fully working examples simply switched off and left in sidings to deteriorate. The overhauls never came and increasing 66 productivity reduced the fleet still further, along with reallocation to of the remaining fleet to Eastleigh Depot in Hampshire taking place.

The fleet became so small that it was considered non-standard not cost effective to maintain a pool of spares for such a small fleet of locos so a number of Class 56s were reactivated to replace the final 58s - 58020, 58024 and 58047 which were stored in September 2002 at Old Oak Common depot in London.

Current Status

Following the withdrawal of the class in the UK, EWS were extremely keen to promote the locos for their intended BR use of export and hire abroad in a similar fashion to the Class 37 hire deal in France in 1998-2000. They have been extremely successful in doing so...

Early in 2003, 58041/043 were removed from the scrap lines at Eastleigh Depot for preparation for a hire deal to GIF in Spain, working infrastructure trains on the new high speed line being constructed. After a repair time of just a few weeks, the locos were painted and moved to Dollands Moor under their own power ready for transport to Spain which took place a few days later. Initially they were to supplement the Class 37 fleet already there, but they will be used for a 'thunderbird' role on the new high speed lines once open. Ownership will be retained by EWS but they will be operated and managed by GIF. A further 6 locos were prepared and moved to Spain in mid-2004.

A 10-year hire deal was also agreed with ACTS - a private operator in the Netherlands - for a fleet of up to 5 locomotives to work container trains. The first locomotive was sent abroad in mid-2003 after a lengthy overhaul at Toton which included fitting Dutch signalling equipment. A second locomotive left in late 2003 and a third in mid-2005. Further locomotives moving abroad will depend on traffic levels increasing sufficiently in Holland.

High speed line construction in France saw another deal struck between EWS and Fertis/TSO/Seco-Rail for the hire of around 45 locomotives consisting of Class 56 and Class 58s for around 2 years. The first loco - 58046 - left in September 2004 with the rest of the fleet following at a steady rate of around 2 per month until completion of delivery in mid-2005 with the delivery of 58018. The locos are used in conjunction with a fleet of ex-French locos along with the Class 56s. This hire deal has seen the first 58/56 combination working in multiple for many, many years!