Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 45, 2019

The British Rail Class 87 is a type of electric locomotive built in 1973–75 by British Rail Engineering Limited. Thirty-six of these locomotives were built to work passenger services over the West Coast Main Line (WCML). They were the flagships of British Rail's electric locomotive fleet until the late 1980s, when the Class 90s started to come on stream. The privatisation of British Rail saw all but one of the fleet transferred to Virgin Trains. They continued their duties until the advent of the new Class 390 Pendolinos, when they were transferred to other operators or withdrawn. There is only one Class 87 still in use in Britain, 87002, owned by the AC Locomotive Group and used by Serco to work the empty coaching stock of the Caledonian Sleeper services, used on mainline sleeper services if required and some charter trains. A large proportion of the fleet have now been exported to Bulgaria.