| MRCE, or Mitsui Rail Capital Europe, is the European division of Mitsui Rail Capital (MRC), one of the many companies in the past 15 years specialising in the leasing of rail equipment on an as-needed basis to railway companies. This was the first time that I had seen any leased locomotive in Germany, though, as rolling stock leasing companies more often lease out freight cars, with GATX being one of the oldest and most famous such companies (they also lease locomotives now, even if their freight car leasing business dates back to 1898). GATX got their start in the United States, where rolling stock leasing has generally been ahead of the rest of the world, and MRC, while Japanese-owned, was actually started officially in Illinois (in the U.S.A.) in 1996, riding the wave of locomotive leasing that changed the face of American railroading towards the end of that decade. In Germany, locomotive leasing is relatively new, with leased locomotives being called "dispoloks" following Swiss terminology (if I have my history right). In any case, getting to this locomotive, this is an older variant of the Seimens Eurosprinter, the ES 64 F4, intended mainly for freight service, with 8,583 horsepower and a 140 Km/h maximum operating speed. Nevertheless, as you can see, it can also be used in passenger services, as no freight trains use Munchen Hbf, and I have found many other photos of these units being used here. |