Originally part of the ‘Red Revolution’, a term used to describe the dominance of English, Welsh and Scottish (EWS) class 66’s across the UK freight scene, 66190 arrived on British soil early in the year 2000. One of 250 near identical locomotives, 66190 was put to work almost immediately on a wide variety of freight work, as the class 66’s were the “go anywhere” type at EWS’s disposal. The first modification came in the summer of 2001 as 66190 was fitted with the now standard swinghead buckeye coupler (locomotive 66200 and above had these fitted from new along with revised lashing eyes)
66190’s first turn in the limelight came on the 19th July 2003 when it hauled the Mossend to Inverness leg of Pathfinder Tours’ Grampian Gyrator. Incidentally, fellow Accurascale Exclusive 66001, worked Stafford to Crewe then Crewe to Stafford on the same tour. 66190 settled back in to its normal working life again until mid-2007 when it was readied for transfer to Euro Cargo Rail (ECR), at Toton. ECR was a subsidiary of EWS, as EWS sought to widen its market in to the European Railfreight business. Despite German operator DB buying the EWS business in 2007 and rebranding to DB Schenker taking place in 2009, ECR continued to be known as such until 2021 when it rebranded as DB Cargo France.
During June 2021, 66190 was returned to DB Cargo stock in the UK via the channel tunnel and headed to Toton depot in Nottinghamshire for a full overhaul and conversion back to UK specification. It emerged in standard ‘De-branded’ EWS maroon and gold livery, albeit with new LED lighting clusters and was used on many routes around the midlands before returning to Toton during early 2023 for a full repaint in to DB house colours.
A very shiny 66190 made its way to York on the 2nd of June 2023 for a naming ceremony, where its “Martin House” plates would be revealed by Rosie Mellor-Silvester, from the Martin House charity. 66190, as a standard pool locomotive is used all across the country from china clay work in the southwest to Biomass in the north but its always treated as a bit of a “pet” by DB staff, the white wall tyres and silver buffers being maintained as much as possible, makes this locomotive stand out from the rest of the fleet
