Last weekend while perusing my social media timelines I spotted a clip posted to one of the Facebook Groups/Pages of a Class 70 Diesel Locomotive in old style Freightliner livery pottering around in the US with a pair of American locomotives.
UK Freightliner Locomotive test with Union Pacific in the USA https://t.co/yznTCPJciI
British Spec locomotive that was sent back after a slight mishap after delivery spotted pottering around in the US
— LocomotivesUK (@LocomotivesUK) March 14, 2024
The locomotive in question was 70012, which was originally delivered to the UK, but they had a bit of a silly little accident unloading the thing, where they apparently managed to drop the thing 20ft back into the cargo hold of the ship they were half-way through unloading it from.
Unfortunately I couldn’t find footage of that mishap like I saw of a similar incident where a Class 66 locomotive got dropped onto the dock.
But I did find footage of 70012 being hauled away from the docks several weeks later, before it was finally mailed back to the factory.
It has apparently been stuck in the United States for the past 12 years since the unloading mishap, and now gets used as a lab rat by the manufacturer to test new upgrades for the rest of the fleet that did make it to the UK successfully.
