0-6-0 Steam Locomotives in New Zealand

Class M (Locobase 5178)

Data from John Garner's comprehensive site at [] (October 2002). Works numbers were 141-144 in 1875 .

These six-coupled tanks in the 1870s operating on the Bluff-Invercargill-Winton section, these engines, Garner says, were probably the first New Zealand locomotives to use a cowcatcher. Photos show them to have equally spaced axles, short tanks over the last two axles, and slightly inclined outside cylinders. Soon after they entered service with the Otago, the NZR took them over and reassigned them to Christchurch.

A later rebuilding is covered in Locobase entry 5179.

Class P (Locobase 5180)

Data from John Garner's comprehensive site at [] ... (October 2002; last accessed 10 June 2025).

Tiny six-coupled saddle-tanks built by a local foundry out of mostly imported parts. (The axles, cylinders, fireboxes, frames, valve motion, and wheels all came from Hunslet Engine Company in England.) In Otago service they had the names Weka and Kiwi, but were soon taken into NZR service.

Garner added that later put Weka to work on the "Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company on construction work, while Kiwi found its way to various sawmills in the North Island."