All hope and opportunity ended, however, when 89001 suffered a serious failure and was withdrawn from traffic in July 1992. At the time of its failure it was still owned by British Rail and Brush had no contractual obligation with regard to it. Additionally, having received no orders from BR in return for their design investment, there was little incentive for Brush to construct spare parts for it. BR had written off the locomotive financially as part of the ECML development; thus it was seen as surplus and of nil value as an asset. As such, the locomotive was sidelined.