The “Blue Tiger” demonstrator was created by Adtranz as the first representative of a planned family of locomotives. The engine and three-phase traction motors are from General Electric. Ten production locomotives were delivered in Germany, which are only used by private railways. In addition, 30 units were built for Pakistan and 20 for Malaysia in different gauges. After Bombardier bought Adtranz, the marketing of the DE-AC33C was discontinued because diesel variants of the TRAXX had also been developed.

Due to the poor reliability of the class 56, British Railways tendered a new diesel locomotive for heavy block trains. The winner of the tender was Brush Traction and the engine was from Mirrlees. This draws 3,100 hp from just eight cylinders and was one of the most economical on the market at the time. After a few teething problems, the first locomotives were put into service in 1990. After privatization, they all came to the EWS, which at times put 75 percent of the locomotives out of service. They later came to DB Cargo UK where some were modernized from 2010 onwards. Others were soon resold and in 2020 the first one was scrapped.

Due to the need for diesel locomotives for heavy shunting and freight service, China Railway had the HXN5B developed by CSR Qishuyan. It was designed after the same principles as the American Road Switchers. It is powered by a twelve-cylinder with 3,530 kW (4,800 hp) and three-phase traction motors. 

For the “Belt and Road” project, additional locomotives were needed for the Chinese-Russian border area whose bogies could be adapted to the Russian and standard gauge. For this purpose, the HXN5B was selected after the DF7C and adapted to use the SA3 central buffer coupling.