British Rail Class 84

The British Rail Class 84 was a class of ten 25 kV AC electric locomotives that worked the West Coast Main Line for the London Midland Region. Built in 1960 as Class AL4 by the North British Locomotive Company at Springburn in Glasgow, to a design by GEC, and numbered E3036 to E3045, they were one of five prototype electric classes bought as the line was electrified. Rough riding, transformer flashovers and mercury-arc rectifier faults dogged them, and they spent years in storage before a rebuild in 1972 with silicon rectifiers, when they became 84001 to 84010. Traction motor failures continued, and British Rail withdrew the class between 1977 and 1980. Locomotive 84001 survives in the National Collection.