86 Class

The New South Wales 86 class was a class of electric locomotives built by Commonwealth Engineering, Granville for the State Rail Authority.

The train is powered by 1500V DC from overhead wires via two pantographs.

History
The 86 class initially hauled passenger and freight services to Lithgow on the Main Western line and Wyong on the Main Northern line. Their sphere of operation extended to Newcastle on the latter line in June 1984 and to Port Kembla in January 1986 when the Illawarra line was electrified.

The last unit was delivered with an bogie configuration of Bo-Bo-Bo as a trial unit. It spent long periods out of traffic undergoing repair.

They soon stopped hauling passenger services, being replaced by electric multiple units (the U and V sets).

In 1994/95 all were repainted by A Goninan & Co, Taree into FreightCorp blue. By October 1997, 18 had been withdrawn from service with cracked frames. Electric locomotives were phased out from 1998, as it was considered more efficient not have to switch locomotives on freight services. They mostly hauled coal trains from Lithgow to Port Kembla in their final years. The last examples were withdrawn in June 2002.

In 2002 most were sold to Silverton Rail and taken to Broken Hill then sold again in February 2006 to Allco Finance Group with some on sold, but most scrapped.

Some units found another use as trackwork trains for working on tunnel sections where diesel locomotives are not allowed due to their exhaust fumes. Four were leased back to RailCorp in 2004 for use on infrastructure trains during construction of the Bondi Junction turnback.

In 2019, 8606 was restored by SETS and is now occasionally used to drop and pick up rail on the City Circle. 8649 was later restored as well for the same purpose and re-entered service on 26 October 2021. After SETS received a $40k heritage grant from Transport Heritage NSW for the repaint of 8649 into the SRA ‘Candy’, on the 6th of March 2022, 8116 hauled 8649 from Enfield to Broadmeadow yard as train number D143. 2 days later on the 8th, 8649 was given an external clean and the pantograph was taken off and later shunted into one of the paint booths at UGL Broadmeadow. On the 9th of May, SETS revealed 8649 in its fresh 'Candy' colour scheme. On the 14th of May, 8184 hauled dead attached 8649 from UGL Broadmeadow to Enfield on train number D414. At the moment, 8649 is yet to receive it's second pantograph.

Survivors

 * 8601 & 8650 are owned by the Dorrigo Steam Railway and Museum, the former stored at Kooragang Island, then Werris Creek and moved finally to Dorrigo during late 2021
 * 8606 & 8649 are owned by the Sydney Electric Train Society (see above)
 * 8607 is privately owned, stored at Canberra [?]
 * 8644 is privately owned by certain members of Sydney Electric Train Society, stored at Chullora
 * 8646 is preserved at the New South Wales Rail Transport Museum, Thirlmere