This is Railpool 187 002 – you most likely have seen it before, but in a different livery. Together with 187 001 and 003 this machine was completed in 2012, having a light blue/silver livery that made it stand out from all other Railpool locomotives.
We see this livery as the ‘prototype livery’ for this type of locomotive. The very first TRAXX AC3 with Last Mile functionality was presented in Munich in 2011 having this specific paint scheme. All three pre-series locomotives got this livery and kept it until today, although they became part of the Railpool lease locomotive fleet in the meanwhile.
187 002 was a regular at the VUZ Velim test circuit over the past years. It teamed up with many other new Bombardier locomotive products at the test center to test and evaluate, such as the TRAXX Israel locomotives.
On 08.03.2018 the 002 re-appeared at Kassel, near the Bombardier factory, in a new livery, the Railpool standard livery. It also has Flex Panels now, promoting DVZ insurances. This looks familiar? Indeed the locomotive now looks very similar to 187 008 that had the same promo panels back in 2016 and 2017.
Curious detail: the locomotive still does not have a ‘Abnahmedatum’.
Lease company Railpool owns 30 TRAXX AC3 locomotives, the full list is on Railcolor.net
