British Rail Class 85

The British Rail Class 85, designated AL5 before the TOPS scheme, is an electric locomotive designed and produced at British Rail's Doncaster Works in the early 1960s. It was one of five prototype classes, Classes 81 to 85, bought for the electrified West Coast Main Line from different builders, and much of its electrical equipment came from the Metropolitan-Vickers division of Associated Electrical Industries. Forty were built at Doncaster between 1961 and 1964, numbered E3056 to E3095 and later 85001 to 85040. They hauled express trains from Birmingham to Crewe, Manchester and Liverpool, later took on freight work, and were withdrawn between the mid 1980s and early 1990s; 85006 has been preserved.