SNCF The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (, , SNCF ) is France's national State-owned enterprise, state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the Rail transport in France, country's national rail traffic along with th ...

's BB 25500 class are part of a series of

electric locomotive An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or on-board energy storage such as a Battery (electricity), battery or a supercapacitor. Locomotives with on-board fuelled prime mover (locomotive), ...

s built by

Alsthom Alstom SA () is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer which operates worldwide in rail transport markets. It is active in the fields of passenger transportation, signaling, and locomotives, producing high-speed, suburban, regional a ...

. They are the

dual system In mathematics, a dual system, dual pair or a duality over a field \mathbb is a triple (X, Y, b) consisting of two vector spaces, X and Y, over \mathbb and a non- degenerate bilinear map b : X \times Y \to \mathbb. In mathematics, duality is t ...

version of the BB 17000 ( AC) and BB 8500 ( DC) locomotives (17000+8500=25500). They are fitted with monomotor bogies with two different gear ratios. This allows them to have either increased tractive effort for freight, or a higher top speed. This makes them suitable for both

freight In transportation, cargo refers to goods transported by land, water or air, while freight refers to its conveyance. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in ...

and

passenger A passenger is a person who travels in a vehicle, but does not bear any responsibility for the tasks required for that vehicle to arrive at its destination or otherwise operate the vehicle, and is not a steward. The vehicles may be bicycles, ...

trains.

They were built in three distinct batches leading to detail differences. They remain in use as mixed traffic locomotives, mostly with TER and Transilien.

Romania

Ten locomotives (25517, 25518, 25523, 25524, 25528, 25536, 25570, 25572, 25576 and 25581) have been exported to

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

. They work with former SNCF Rio carriages for Regiotrans. Unfortunately, 25536 caught fire on 5 December 2017 at

Cața Cața (; ) is a commune in Brașov County, Transylvania, Romania. It is composed of five villages: Beia (''Meeburg''; ''Homoródbene''), Cața, Drăușeni (''Draas''; ''Homoróddaróc''), Ionești (''Eisdorf''; ''Homoródjánosfalva''), and Palo� ...

station whilst hauling a freight train. Services worked are: *

Brașov Brașov (, , ; , also ''Brasau''; ; ; Transylvanian Saxon dialect, Transylvanian Saxon: ''Kruhnen'') is a city in Transylvania, Romania and the county seat (i.e. administrative centre) of Brașov County. According to the 2021 Romanian census, ...

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...

- Constanţa (Summer) The locomotives have been renumbered by adding 400,000 to their SNCF numbers.

Preservation

Locomotive 25609 is on preervation in Cité du Train in Mulhouse and is on display.

References

{{SNCF locos Alstom locomotives B′B′ locomotives B-B locomotives 25500 Standard gauge electric locomotives of France Electric locomotives of France 1500 V DC locomotives 25 kV AC locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1964 Multi-system locomotives Standard-gauge locomotives of Romania