92002 H.G. Wells Railfreight Grey
Completed by Brush Traction in December 1993 and named after the prolific English writer H.G. Wells, No. 92002 would spend its formative years undergoing testing, initially at the Railway Technical Centre, Derby, then at the Velim test track near Prague in the Czech Republic and, finally, at the Arsenal complex near Vienna in Austria. Repatriated to the UK in time for the Crewe Basford Hall Open Day in August 1995, it was eventually taken into stock in October 1996 at Crewe International Electric Maintenance Depot some two years after the opening of the Channel Tunnel. Initially subsisting on a diet of trains between Dollands Moor and North London over the ‘classic’ third rail route - once cleared by Railtrack - it joined English Welsh & Scottish Railway on its takeover of Railfreight Distribution in November 1997 and by the end of the decade the dual-voltage locomotive could be found with ‘pan’ up working the full length of the West Coast Main Line between Mossend and Wembley, while services on the East Coast route followed a couple of years later. No. 92002, by now defaced with an EWS ‘big beasties’ sticker, was stored in December 2008 and later re-instated after the sale to DB Schenker in November 2012. It spent several months hired to Direct Rail Services in 2014 and was sidelined again that same November. With its European signalling capability, DB exported the Class 92 to its subsidiary in Romania in April 2015 and renumbered it 91 53 0472 003-9 with the name Lucian Blaga after the philosopher and poet. The Class 92 was later sold to Croatia-based Transagent Rail in 2018 and after several years of use it is now stored at Dunakeszi Works, Budapest in Hungary.