Graham Farish - 371-640 - Locomotive, Diesel, Class 70 - Freightliner - 70015

Specific Item Information: The Class 70 is a six-axle Co-Co mainline freight GE PowerHaul locomotive series manufactured by General Electric in Erie, Pennsylvania. The order placed in 2007 for 20 units, with an option for a further 10, for Freightliner for operations in the United Kingdom was the first order for the PowerHaul type. The locomotives are similar in appearance to a Class 58; a hood unit design with a narrow body typical of locomotive types in use in North America, the cabs are accessed from the rear via exterior walkways on the narrow part of the hood. The distinctive front end shape is due to crashworthiness features.

The class is in use with Freightliner and Colas Rail in the UK. Freightliner uses its fleet of 70/0 locomotives on its scheduled intermodal and bulk-haul services. Colas Rail has contracts to work timber traffic and infrastructure traffic for Network Rail, and as a result both sub-fleets can be seen generally network-wide, route availability permitting, as these are substantial machines!

Road Name History: Freightliner Group is a leading rail freight provider with businesses in the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, Australia and the Middle East. Having provided rail solutions for some of the largest blue chip organisations, we have established ourselves as a leader within the rail freight industry; setting standards, introducing new thought processes and industry firsts.

Freightliner Ltd is the leading UK intermodal rail freight operator for transportation of maritime containers by rail in the UK. With a comprehensive network offering, and provision of local delivery with our own road fleet we can provide either the complete logistics package or trunk rail moves.

Brand/Importer Information: Graham Farish is a British brand of N gauge model trains, that belongs to Bachmann Europe.
The company entered the model train business in the early 1950s, focusing on British OO gauge rolling stock, track and accessories.
In the 1970s, it started to produce N gauge models under the GRAFAR label. After the withdrawal of Lima and Minitrix from the UK market in the late 1980s, Graham Farish was the only major supplier of British outline models in N gauge, soon withdrawing from the OO scale market.
In 2001, Graham Farish was purchased by Kader Industries of Hong Kong, and absorbed by its subsidiary Bachmann Industries. Bachmann immediately closed the British manufacturing facility and moved production to China.
Bachmann have since increased the size of the Farish range, by duplicating models introduced to the Bachmann OO range; often, an OO scale Bachmann Branchline model is followed between 6 months to a year later by an N gauge Graham Farish model.

Manufacturer Information: Bachmann, a US company founded in 1835, was purchased by Kader Industries in 1987. Kader formed Bachmann Industries Europe in 1989 with their main UK headquarters in Moat Way, Barwell, Leicestershire, UK (former Palitoy location) and the following year launched the Bachmann Branchline range for the British market with the moulds that had previously been used for the Palitoy Mainline and Replica Railways model railway products. From this starting point Bachmann has developed the range further and now produce a large range of models.
In 2001 Bachmann Branchline bought Graham Farish, an N gauge manufacturer, and since then many of their models have been made available in both gauges.
Bachmann Europe portfolio also comprises other model trains brands such as Liliput.