New Zealand Government Railways 2-4-0 Locomotives in New_Zealand

Class D (Locobase 5167)

Data from John Garner's comprehensive site at [] ... (October 2002). See also Charles Rous-Marten, "New Zealand Railways: Their History, Engines and Work", The Railway Magazine (December 1899), pp. 567+.

Using the same boiler and cylinders as the 0-4-2T C-class, this series had taller drivers (relatively speaking) and weighed in a little lighter as well. They also may have inclined the cylinders more steeply as well. Dubs supplied 5, Neilson 17, and local builder Scott Brothers, Ltd of Christchurch turned out 11.

Garner notes that these engines were dual-service locomotives in the 1870s and 1880s. Rous-Marten, a New Zealand resident until he returned to England in 1884 for a visit and 1894 to live, saw a great deal of this class and concluded that they were "for thtir size, undoubtedly most admirable little engines, excellently designed, and when I mention that they were constructed by such eminent British builders as Neilson and Dubs, it is almost superfluous to add that they were also most excellently built ...These active little fellows did capital work and trotted along at 25 or 30 miles an hour with quite respectable loads. Indeed, I have tested them once or twice at 45 miles an hour with light loads on favourable gradients, when they ran quite cool and with tolerable steadiness."

After their NZGR days, several went on for decades in service to logging railways or industrial lines.

Class L (Locobase 5177)

Data from John Garner's comprehensive site at [] ... (October 2002). See also Charles Rous-Marten, "New Zealand Railways: Their History, Engines and Work", The Railway Magazine (December 1899), pp. 567+.

This is the original set of ten small tanks delivered to the NZGR Rous-Marten said that although the L class (and very similar G-class 4-4-0Ts) were not well-liked, it "performed a great deal of important duty, and often well, sometimes brilliantly. But the L engines imperatively required a driver who understood and humoured their idiosyncrasies. Two drivers [Shorten, he adds, was one of them.], both in the Wellington district, were particularly.successful in getting both speed and haulage out of the L locomotives."

But they were substantially modified when time came for heavy repairs.