British Rail Class 93 (InterCity 250)
British Rail Class 93 is the traction classification assigned to the electric locomotives that were to enter service as part of British Rail (BR)'s InterCity 250 project on the West Coast Main Line (WCML). They would have been capable of travelling at up to 155 mph (250 km/h), and powering a push-pull train of up to nine Mark 5 coaches and a driving van trailer (DVT), similar to the InterCity 225 sets.
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Artist’s impression of a Class 93 locomotive | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The locomotives would have been derived from the Class 91 locomotives that entered service on the East Coast Main Line in 1989, and would thus have traced a lineage back to the Advanced Passenger Train (APT) that was planned to run on the WCML more than a decade earlier.
Tenders to construct the locomotives and rolling stock were issued in March 1991, with an expected in service date of 1995; it was envisaged that up to 30 complete trains would be initially required, with a total cost estimated at £380 million. However, the cancellation of the InterCity 250 project in July 1992 meant that the rolling stock orders were never made.