License:
Creative Commons - Attribution-Share Alike Author: Train Photos
Description:
DB Schenker's class 66 (JT42CWR) number 66040 in English, Welsh and Scottish Railway maroon with zigzag gold band works 6O32 Margam to Dollands Moor on 20 May 2014 hauling loaded IHA bogie steel coil carrier wagons. Ultimately this service takes steel from Tata's Port Talbot steelworks to Rotterdam or Maubeuge France via Calais Frethun (for the full route taken see
www.flickr.com/photos/99279135@N05/14092887923/). Of the IHA bogie steel coil carrier wagons being hauled by 66040 six were identified as numbers 33 87 4667 075-4, 37 84 4667 196-8, 37 84 4667 131-5, 37 84 4667 129-9, 33 87 4304 021-2 and 37 84 4667 064-8. Laurent Knop photographed a similar set of wagons at Landas (department 59 France) hauled by two locomotives including class 77 number 008 (previously HLD 5709) working from Calais Fréthun to Maubeuge on 17 April 2014 (
www.flickr.com/photos/x4644/13983513315/in/faves-99279135...). 66040 was built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division, London, Ontario, Canada in 1998 and unloaded from the Heavy Lift Ship MV "Fairload" at Newport Docks on 16 December 1998.
The steel flow from South Wales to Maubeuge (France) and to Broekman (Holland) stopped running through the Channel tunnel at the end of November 2015. The flow to Maubeuge was cancelled as the cold mill which produced this material was mothballed as part of the Tata Steel strip downsizing programme. Instead Maubeuge is supplied from Tata Steels Limuiden plant (Holland). 2 grades of steel were also supplied by Tata Steel to Broekman Group to make oil drums. With one grade being sourced from elsewhere the remaining 700 tonnes per week of the second grade was not sufficient to run a block train.
