The DSB class ME are a series of diesel-electric locomotives, introduced in 1981. A total of 37 units were built, all by the German factory Henschel

Henschel & Son

Henschel & Son was a German company, situated in Kassel, best known during the 20th century as a maker of transportation equipment, including locomotives, trucks, buses and trolleybuses, and armoured fighting vehicles and weapons....

 for the Danish State Railways (DSB)

History

The locomotives were designed to haul the more heavy regional services on Sealand in the early 80s replacing
much of the old stock

Rolling stock

Rolling stock comprises all the vehicles that move on a railway. It usually includes both powered and unpowered vehicles, for example locomotives, railroad cars, coaches and wagons...

 which were in use at the time.

The first unit, 1501 arrived in 1981 with many years of delay

Lag

Lag is a common word meaning to fail to keep up or to fall behind. In real-time applications, the term is used when the application fails to respond in a timely fashion to inputs...

. In 1983, the DSB had received a total of 30 units. Although there had been some serious trouble with the locos DSB had found a solution on the problems - and additionally seven more units were delivered.

All of the locos continues to be in service with the exception of one which has been retired

Retirement

Retirement is the point where a person stops employment completely. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours.Many people choose to retire when they are eligible for private or public pension benefits, although some are forced to retire when physical conditions don't allow the person to...

 and scrapped because of a fire. However, both they and the last passenger coaches in service are to be replaced by IC3

IC3

The IC3 is a Danish-built high-comfort medium/long distance diesel multiple-unit train. The sets were built by ABB Scandia . This train model has been operating in Denmark and Sweden since 1989...

 trainsets when the IC4

IC4

The IC4 is an inter-city train built by Italian AnsaldoBreda for the trans-Great Belt routes of Danske Statsbaner , Denmark's national railway operator. Under DSB's ‘Good trains for everyone’ plan , the intent of the IC4 project was to replace several types of outdated rolling stock...

 trainsets will start service.

As for now, the locos has been repainted in DSBs new blue/red livery.
The locos are technically very identical to the NSB Di4

NSB Di 4

The NSB Di 4 is a diesel-electric locomotive used by Norwegian NSB railways to haul passenger trains on stretches which are not electrified. They are used mostly on Nordlandsbanen, since the other unelectrified stretches are usually served by diesel multiple units.The five Di 4s which were built...

Sources

GM-nyt.dk

External links

• Class ME on jernbanen.dk (Danish)