The Commonwealth Railways L class was a class of freight locomotives built in 1951-1952 by

Clyde Engineering Clyde Engineering was an Australian manufacturer of locomotives, rolling stock, and other industrial products. It was founded in September 1898 by a syndicate of Sydney businessmen buying the Granville factory of timber merchants Huds ...

, Granville, for the

Commonwealth Railways The Commonwealth Railways were established in 1917 by the Government of Australia with the Commonwealth Railways Act to administer the Trans-Australia and Port Augusta to Darwin railways. It was absorbed into Australian National in 1975. Op ...

, Australia.

History

In the late 1940s, the

Federal Government A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...

placed an order with

, Granville for fifty 2-8-2 locomotives. These were ordered as part of Australia's contribution to the

United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was an international relief agency, largely dominated by the United States but representing 44 nations. Founded in November 1943, it was dissolved in September 1948. it became part o ...

rehabilitation of China. With the first locomotives under construction, China fell to the Communists and Australia's obligations ceased.L class
Chris's Commonwealth Railways Pages The government was able to renegotiate the contract, with only twenty built. Ten were taken by the

, even though it already had diesel locomotives on order, with the other ten going to the

South Australian Railways South Australian Railways (SAR) was the statutory corporation through which the Government of South Australia built and operated railways in South Australia from 1854 until March 1978, when its non-urban railways were incorporated into Austr ...

as the 740 class. Some were immediately placed on the scrap line at

Port Augusta Port Augusta is a small city in South Australia. Formerly a port, seaport, it is now a road traffic and Junction (rail), railway junction city mainly located on the east coast of the Spencer Gulf immediately south of the gulf's head and about ...

and never entered service. All were officially withdrawn by May 1959. They were scrapped in the mid 1960s with the boilers sold overseas. Some of the tenders were converted into water carriers for use on the Commonwealth Railways weed killer train, still being in use in the early 1980s.

References

Notes

Bibliography

* {{AusLocos, state=collapsed Clyde Engineering locomotives L class Railway locomotives introduced in 1951 2-8-2 locomotives Standard gauge locomotives of Australia Scrapped locomotives Freight locomotives