The Lok 2000-family locomotives are the last mainline locomotives to be quasi fully developed and produced by Swiss companies. Locomotive construction in Switzerland has since been largely discontinued for economic reasons. Only Stadler Rail still manufactures shunting and rack railway locomotives in the country.
Assignment
The series was introduced as part of the Rail 2000 project, a massive project to modernise and improve the capacity of Switzerland's railways.[2]
Upon their entry into service in the early 1990s, they replaced the Ae 3/6I, Ae 4/7, and Re 4/4I series units, and displaced many of the Re 4/4II series into lesser duties.
When SBB was split up on 1 September 1999, locomotives Re 460 No. 079–118 were assigned to the freight division, later becoming SBB Cargo. It was seen as an advantage to use all Re 460, which had been designed for 200km/h (120mph), for passenger service. The passenger division passed the Re 6/6 to SBB Cargo and bought Re 460 079–095 on 1 January 2003, 096–102 in 2004, and the rest in 2005.
While originally designed as a multipurpose locomotive, they are now used for passenger services only, often in conjunction with the IC 2000double-decker or EW IV[de] trainsets (often used to pull InterCity and InterRegio trains in the German and French language areas). Their freight role has been assumed by Re 482s, Re 420/421 and Re 620 (previously also Re 481).
See also: Media related to SBB Re 460 names at Wikimedia Commons
Like several other Swiss locomotives (e.g. Ae 6/6, Re 6/6, Re 450), almost all Re 460 locomotives are named. In case of the Re 460, the names are applied below the cab window at one end.
List of Re 460 Engine Nos. with their names (Engine number is Re 460 xxx)
Due in part to their large, mainly flat bodysides, Swiss Federal Railways were approached early on with requests for the Re 460 to be used as mobile advertising hoardings. Despite opposition from some quarters, the money that could be earned swayed the decision, and the first such locomotive, Re 460 015, was unveiled in 1994 in Agfa livery. Today no other loco type in Switzerland carries so many different liveries.
List of alternate names due to special liveries[3]
Swiss company BLS operates 18 similar locomotives, designated Re 465. These locomotives have efficiency modifications, slightly higher power output and tractive effort and individual axle control rather than individual bogie control, but are otherwise identical to the Re 460. Numbered 001–018, all are named.[4] These locomotives are used for both passenger and freight duties by BLS.[5]
Rolling highway near Lalden, pulled by two BLS Re 465BLS Re 465 007 named Schilthorn („Piz Gloria“)
The MTR Corporation of Hong Kong also operated two Lok2000 variants for its cross-boundary service from Kowloon, Hong Kong, to Guangzhou, China. They were introduced in 1998 when the service was operated by the KCRC; accordingly, the train is called the KTT, which stands for "KCR Through Train". These long-distance trains had ten double-deck carriages[6] and were equipped with knuckle couplers, instead of buffers and chain couplers. While the train had two locomotives, it was not operated in push-pull mode. The KTT service was cancelled in 2024, following suspension of the service from 2020 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the opening of the faster Hong Kong Express Rail Link in 2018. Both locomotives have been in storage since then; however, beginning in January 2025, one locomotive was placed on display at Hung Hom station.
The 46 Sr2 locomotives of VR (Finnish Railways) are closely based on the Re 460, as are the 22 NSB El 18 class used by Vy of Norway. Indian Railways' WAP-5 electric locomotives are also based on the Re 460. The shape of the modified version of China Railways SS9 electric locomotives is similar to Re 460.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to SBB Re 460.
↑ The allowed top speed is 200 km/h. In order to get the approval to run at that speed, the locomotive must be able to go 15% faster; thus, the technical top speed is 230km/h (143mph), see Article by Bruno LämmliArchived 2011-07-06 at the Wayback Machine (German). However, this is not relevant in normal operation. Therefore, the table holds the allowed top speed, as for any other rail vehicle.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
