British Railways class 71 locomotives were built to provide electric locomotives for goods and non-electric (eg parcels) services across the third rail electrified areas of the former Southern Railway. Power was collected from the third rail aith an auxiliary pantograph fitted for use in yards, where the third rail would be a hazard for shunting staff and a flywheel booster set was fitted to provide power while negotiating gaps in the third rail.
While the cass 71s were a successful design a pure-electric locomotive is restricted to routes with electric power available. A new design of electric locomotive (later class 73) equiped with a low-power auxiliary diesel engine provided a far more flexible locomotive able to work away from the third rail for extended periods. The class 71s locomotives were withdrawn from service en-bloc at the end of 1977. One example, E5001, was retained for presevation as part of the national collection.
Using the revolutionary 3D laser scanning system, LIDAR, to accurately map the actual locomotive has allowed Hornby to recreate to a level of detail far more accurate than traditional mapping methods alone. Reference to historical photographs, plans and reference material ensures that any differences from the scanned engine, such as modifications, were taken into account to produce the final model design.
The British Rail Class 71 Electric Locomotive is a Bo-Bo configuration engine which was built at the British Rail Doncaster works between 1958 and 1960, for mixed-traffic service on Southern Region’s Kent Coast Main Line. The Class 71 was only able to work on the third rail power system although a pantograph was also fitted to allow overhead power to be used in some yards. Despite this restriction the engines worked high profile routes, notably the Night Ferry and the Golden Arrow. The engines were relatively short lived, most of them being scrapped in fully working order, as Class 73 electro-diesels eventually made the Class 71 redundant. In addition, the increasing use of Electric Multiple Units for passenger work led to the eventual demise of the engines.