Power type electric Build date 2006-2008, 2014 AAR wheel arr. B-B | Model TRAXX F140 MS Total produced 12 + 19 + 26 | |
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Builder Bombardier Transportation | ||
The NS Class 186 is a type of B-B electric locomotive built by Bombardier Transportation between 2006 and 2014. It is a member of the Bombardier TRAXX family of locomotives, the Bombardier TRAXX F140 MS2 variant.
Contents
The trains are used for pulling passenger stock, formerly for NS Hispeed and now for NS International.
The loco's are a Multi-Systems variant of the TRAXX, a quadruple voltage locomotive, able to operate on most European electrification schemes: 1.5/3.0 kV DC and 15/25 kV AC.
The Class is formed of two batches, the first introduced in 2008 are leased locomotives. The second batch were introduced in 2014 and are owned by NS.
HSA batch
The locomotives are built in Kassel, Germany. The first 12 locomotives were ordered from Alpha Trains by High Speed Alliance (HSA) in 2005. These arrived in 2008 and 2009 to operate services on the HSL-Zuid between Amsterdam and Breda. These trains have a maximum speed of 160 km/h. These locomotives were intended to be a temporary measure until the V250 high-speed sets entered service. The V250 entered service in 2012, but was taken out of service in early 2013 and these have since been sold back to the manufacturer. For this reason the NS TRAXX locomotives are still in service and will remain so until at least 2020.
The leased locomotives were delivered in a red livery with white fronts, but since 2015 are being repainted yellow-blue.
NS batch
On 18 December 2013 NS announced that 19 locomotives had been ordered in addition to the 12 leased TRAXX locomotives in service. These were delivered between August 2014 and January 2015. This batch and are owned by NS and are in the company's yellow-blue livery.
On 17 June 2015 NS announced that a new batch of 26 locomotives had been ordered. The delivery started on 23 May 2016. The new locomotives will help the NS to drive each high-speed train in a so-called 'sandwich-formation' (locomotive + coaches + locomotive).
Services
The loco's operate Intercity Direct services between Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Breda. These use the High Speed Line (HSL-Zuid) and operated by Nederlandse Spoorwegen.
Fleet
The NS Class 186 fleet comprises 31 locomotives.