Hornby Class 60 - The Hundred of Who?

This Christmas I received a fantastic surprise gift, in the form of this superb Hornby Class 60, from a very good Australian friend who I thank most sincerely.

This is the first Class 60 to join the fleet and she really is a handsome and powerful beast. She is fitted with a Hornby TTS sound decoder so, not only does she look good, but she sounds great too!

The Catalogue Nº is R2899XS, her Running Nº is 60042 and she is named 'The Hundred of Hoo'. 

Now, for those of you who, like me, have no idea why this loco is so named, the Hundred of Hoo Academy is a 4–18 mixed, all-through school and sixth form with academy status in Hoo St Werburgh, Kent, England and it is part of the Leigh Academies Trust.

As for the model, the Class 60, to my mind, is one of Hornby's best locos and it is great to have one in our fleet, thanks again Michael.

Their larger sisters were introduced in late 1990 after BR had decided that they needed a more capable Type 5 locomotive and, from the three tenders submitted, Brush Traction was awarded the contract.. 

Our model is in the EWS livery and it was EWS who took over the entire fleet of Class 60s with the privatization of British Rail and who, themselves, were acquired by DB Schenker in 2007.

In 2004 the first and, so far, only member of the class was withdrawn, namely 60006 'Great Gable', later 'Scunthorpe Ironmaster'. However, the loco was only scrapped in January of last year.

All of the class were given names by Railfreight in 1989, with their names being dependent upon the sectors to which they were assigned. As such, those locomotives attached to the construction and metals sectors (of which 60042 was one) were named after British mountains, as were some Class 60s attached to the coal sector.

To that end, our loco was originally named 'Dunkery Beacon' but, in July 1999, it was given the name that our model carries.

As of now, however, I believe this loco has been unnamed and, indeed, has been withdrawn from service.