Brush Traction / ABB

'Brush Traction / ABB' is used in this encyclopedia for the design partnership between Brush Traction of Loughborough and ABB Transportation for British Railways diesel-electric locomotive classes of the late 1980s and early 1990s, principally the Class 60 heavy freight locomotive and certain elements of the Class 92 dual-voltage Channel Tunnel electric locomotive.

Brush Traction had been one of the most important names in British diesel-electric locomotive manufacture since the 1950s, producing the Class 31 A1A-A1A, the Class 47 Co-Co, the Class 87 electric locomotive bodyshells, and the celebrated HST power car traction motors among many other products. The Loughborough works had a long history of electrical engineering for railway traction dating from the British Thomson-Houston era, and the Brush name on a diesel-electric locomotive was a guarantee of sound electrical equipment.

The partnership with ABB Transportation reflected the changing structure of British rail manufacturing in the privatisation era: Brush's traction expertise was combined with ABB's bodywork and assembly capabilities from the former BREL Crewe facilities to bid for and supply Class 60 and Class 92 locomotives for the freight and Channel Tunnel markets. The Class 60 Mirrlees-engined locomotive, supplied from 1989, gave EWS and its successors a powerful and capable heavy freight Co-Co for MGR coal and oil traffic; 100 were built, and several examples are preserved. The Class 92 dual-voltage locomotive for Channel Tunnel freight and passenger services was a more complex project, operating under both 25 kV AC overhead and 750 V DC third-rail in France and Britain respectively.