The British Rail Class 37 is a diesel locomotive. Also known as the English Electric Type 3, the Class was ordered as part of the British Rail modernisation plan.
The Class 37 became a familiar sight on many parts of the British Rail network, in particular forming the main motive power for Inter-City services in East Anglia and within Scotland. They also performed well on secondary and inter-regional services for many years. The Class 37 is known by railway enthusiasts as a "Tractor", the nickname derived from the similarity of the sound of the locomotive.
Railfreight livery, a colour scheme specifically for freight locomotives, was unveiled when Class 58 58001 drove through a plastic screen at Doncaster Works on 9 December 1982[14]. While this livery had much in common with the 'Large Logo version of Rail Blue livery, including the yellow cabs and larger logo and numbers on the bodyside, the main colour was grey rather than blue. A later version added a red stripe along the lower edge of the locomotive bodyside.
When British Rail operations were divided into sectors in the late 1980's, prior to privatisation, a new version of the Railfreight livery emerged giving the sectors individual identities. Consisting of three shades of grey and thus known as "triple grey Railfreight", the livery included logos on the sides and cabs of locomotives indicating which sector they belonged to. For locomotives used on internal British Rail duties, a separate livery of a plain darker grey was created. This was later modified for locomotives allocated to the Civil Engineer's department to include a yellow stripe on the upper bodyside, the resulting livery being known as "Dutch" due to its similarity to the corporate colours of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia articles "British Rail Class 37"and "British Rail corporate liveries".
; "Class 37/5 Diesel 37693 Railfreight (DCC Sound)")