4
Prototype
tives from Cologne in central Germany whenever
they haul a train to Leuna or Berlin, amongst others.
We have chosen the DE671 built in 2003 and with
an extended concession issued in 2011 as the pro-
totype for our model that bears white stripes on
the front.
The livery of the class 66 locomotives is accentuated
by the sharp contrast of black or grey sides with
the light green contrast patches leading around the
cabs. In Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands the
Captrain locomotives are mainly deployed hauling
container traffic, block trains consisting of tank
wagons or coal cars. They also display their power
ahead of block trains made up of cars with sliding
sides carrying parts for the automotive industry. In
Germany these six axle locomotives regularly travel
from the Rhine Ruhr region as far as Berlin.
As from 2010 CB rail, a renter of locomotives sent
their German and Luxembourg subsidiaries under
the name of Ascendos Rail Leasing GmbH into the
game of rail freight traffic. For operations on only
partly electrified lines Ascendos has a stable of 20
class 66 locomotives and an extra three class 77.
For Modeltrain enthusiasts these locomotives with
their green livery accentuated by the turquoise and
yellow contrast stripes are highly attractive since
they are not only deployed to haul block trains with
containers, tank cars, construction materials, coal,
motor vehicles or machine parts but make them-
selves useful in track maintenance service of for
transfers of other vehicles. Particularly in the area
of construction site logistics these locomotives are
often seen with only a handful of cars. Well known
companies renting these six axle locomotives have
been and are the HGK, Crossrail, ITL or the Ruhr-
talbahn deploying them all over Germany, Belgium
and the Netherlands.
The four units owned by the SNCF Benelux and re-
gularly travelled through Belgium, the Netherlands
and Germany in their impressive and very elegant
blue silver livery. Initially it was quite easy to diffe-
rentiate them due to their different design of the
contrast areas on the front and rear. They were
mainly hauling two axle hoppers, container trains
and tank car trains.
HKG‘s DE 62 still owns the british style headlights with outer position lamp in contrast to DE
61. Picture taken on 24.08.2011 in Ulm Hbf
Pictur
e: Jochen Frickel
The prototype of the ESU model in Montzen
/ Belgium
Pictur
e: Rolf W
iemann
