In 2023, Railcolor News extensively informed you about the near future of NMBS/SNCB’s fleet of leased Traxx locomotives. We mostly discussed minor beautifications to the existing fleet of twelve locomotives leased from Alpha Trains. The article concluded with exciting news being on the horizon, including new locomotives and new designs – about which we have more details:
This article was first published on 11.09.2024 and updated on 17.09.2024; scroll down for the update.
What is happening? The Belgian Federal Railways SNCB/NMBS wants to start its own, new direct trains connecting Brussels and Rotterdam in December 2024. These will operate alongside the NS ICNG-B trains on the same route. Eventually, SNCB/NMBS wants to use Alstom TRAXX 3 MS electrics (Class 17) and I11 passenger coaches. However, these new locomotives are still under development (one machine was seen at Alstom’s in Kassel last week).
The temporary solution is to use the I11 coaches with Traxx MS2e (186). SNCB/NMBS currently has 12 such machines under contract (2802-2813 = Alpha Train 186 124-125, 196-205), which will be replaced by the ICNG-Bs in the next months (most likely), so these will be available. But twelve is not enough (the trains will run in sandwich formation with two locomotives each), so extra machines will be leased:
SNCB/NMBS is getting Alpha Trains 186 119-122 (coming over from NS). The most interesting thing for us Railcolor is that they get a repaint as they had the blue-yellow NS design. On 16.09.2024 Albert Koch was able to portray the repainted 186 119 in Amsterdam (te repainting takes place at the Zaanstraat workshops).
Still missing however are logos, SNCB fleet numbers and a VKM.
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