The contract with General Motors was signed in November 1984 and the new locomotives, built at the GM plant in La Grange, Illinois, were shipped across the Atlantic in January 1986. The JT26CW-SS, newly designated as British Rail Class 59/0, had a cab layout taken from the Class 58, to make driver assimilation easier, and to meet the British loading gauge a considerable amount of redesign work and various compromises were required from the original GM prototype. Once in the United Kingdom, further tests were undertaken before Foster Yeoman's new locomotives entered service in February 1986. They were officially named in a ceremony at Merehead on 28 June 1986.