Commonwealth 2-8-2 Locomotives in Australia

Class L (Locobase 3319)

Data from [], last accessed 26 March 2012.

Based on the South Australian's 700 class, 50 of these engines were originally intended to replace war-destroyed engines in China. Once the Nationalist government fled to Taiwan, however, that deal was cancelled (although the new Communist government could undoubtedly have used the engines). South Australian took 10 and the Commonwealth bought another 10; the other 30 were cancelled.

As Chris Drymalik pointed out, however, the Commonwealth didn't really want more steamers as the available coal was quite poor. Only a reluctance on the government's part to finance diesel purchases led them to adopt the Ls. Delivery was held up by strikes and shortages as well as a preference for South Australian (doubtless because they already had 700s in service) and in the interim the Commonwealth Government changed its financing policy to allow diesel purchases. As a result, most of the Ls never actually pulled a train. They were scrapped in the mid 1960s.