Freightliner gives Class 70 retro look to mark firm's 60th anniversary

Freightliner has repainted 70008 - although not (as expected) in its orange livery, but in a new special yellow and green livery in a nod to the company’s past.

The locomotive's repaint was carried out by UK Rail Leasing in Loughborough, and completed on November 20.

A Freightliner spokeswoman said: “As we are celebrating our 60th anniversary in 2025, we have taken the opportunity to celebrate this with a special livery. We will also be marking our 60th year with other celebratory plans throughout the year.”

When sold by BR, Freightliner used a version of the old BR two- tone grey livery, before moving to a new green livery with yellow cabs - first for its Class 57s and then its ‘66s’.

The arrival of the first Class 70 in 2010 resulted in a new ‘PowerHaul’ livery being introduced that was latter applied to a handful of Class 66s, ‘86s’ and ‘90s’.

The takeover by Genesee and Wyoming saw a break from this, with a striking orange and black livery which has been retained and is still being applied to Class 08s, ‘66s’, ‘90s’ and more recently 70020. Now 70008 has broken that trend with its one-off livery.

Meanwhile, the first of two Class 90s that Freightliner has acquired from DB Cargo (90040) has entered traffic in its old red livery, but with orange Freightliner logos pending a full repaint.

However, its entry into traffic has been offset by 90046 being stored, leaving 23 of the fleet in use. Fellow ex-DBC locomotive 90018 is being prepared for traffic.

Freightliner does not expect
to acquire any further Class 90s. Twelve operational locomotives were offered for sale by DB Cargo in December 2023, but there has been no news on their possible sale. Also, eight Class 67s remain sold from the same tender list.