South Australian Railways 2-4-0 Locomotives in Australia

Class A (Locobase 5882)

Data from Douglas Colquhoun's entries presented in the Australian national railway museum site: [] (visited 14 Feb 2004). Works numbers were 1827-1828 in 1868 and 2108 in 1873.

Three healthy well tanks. The latter two (19 and 20) actually arrived first, in 1868. Five years later, a third arrived and took #1. Each locomotive was rebuilt over a long period of time: #19 in December 1883, #1 in May 1889 and #20 sometime in 1893. All were withdrawn in the mid-1920s.

Class C (Locobase 5673)

Data from Douglas Colquhoun's entries presented in the Australian national railway museum site: [] (visited 14 October 2003). Works number was 1045-1046.

Small Stephenson 2-4-0s for the Australian broad gauge, the first delivered in November 1856, the second in January 1857). Both were overhauled 28 years after they entered service. #5 was withdrawn in 1905 while #6 carried on until 1926, 69 years after first service.

Class E (Locobase 5884)

Data from Douglas Colquhoun's entries presented in the Australian national railway museum site: [] (visited 14 Feb 2004). Works numbers (as Slaughter & Gruning) 458-459 in 1862, (as Avonside) 587 in 1865.

Slaughter & Grunning (which Edward Slaughter reorganized as Avonside in 1864) produced six tank engines for Australian and New Zealand railways in 1861-1864. Three went to the Canterbury and are described in Locobase 5883. In that same period, the Melbourne & Essendon took delivery of road #1 in January 1862. Two years later, the M & E sold #1 to the SAR, which renumbered it 13. The second of the two in the batch went straight to the SAR as its #13. Avonside's works number 587 was bought by the SAR in 1865 and entered service as road #14.

Later on, the New Zealand Canterburys went across the Tasman Sea to the South Australian Railway in 1880-1882 and the six engines were then grouped together as E-class locomotives. (Canterbury 4, 3, & 2 became 51, 50, and 49 respectively.)

The original 3 SARs were rebuilt in 1881 (13), 1884 (10), and 1886 (14). Retirements began in 1886 (13), continued in 1899 (14), and ended with 10's departure in December 1904. (Colquhoun gives no reason why the original SARs could be rebuilt in the same period as the Canterburys, but be retired so much sooner.)

Class G (Locobase 5674)

Data from Douglas Colquhoun's entries presented in the Australian national railway museum site: [] (visited 14 October 2003). Works numbers 858-859 in 1869, 1901, 1900, 1902 in November 1879, 2739-2741 in 1886.

Although all of them eventually wound up on the SAR, engines 156 and 161-162 were delivered to Holdfast Bay Railway in November 1881. Later moving to the Glenelg Railway as 2, 7, & 8, the trio came to the SAR in 1899 (161-162) and 1902 (156).

The other engines were supplied directly to the South Australian Government by BP in 1869 and 1886.

Except for the 161, condemned on 12 December 1904, the class was retired as a group on 5 June 1923.

Class P (Locobase 2426)

Data from diagram archived in [], last accessed 8 March 2015.

Among the first of Australian suburban passenger tank engines. Beyer, Peacock built 6 and James Martin & Co. of Gawler produced the other 14.