The

Nederlandse Spoorwegen Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS; ; en, "Dutch Railways") is the principal passenger railway operator in the Netherlands. It is a Dutch state-owned company founded in 1938. The Dutch rail network is one of the busiest in the European Union, and t ...

(NS) Class 200 diesel locomotives were built for shunting duties. 169 of these small locomotives, numbered 201–369, were built by

Werkspoor Werkspoor N.V. was the shortened, and later the official name of the Nederlandsche Fabriek van Werktuigen en Spoorwegmaterieel. It was a Dutch machine factory, known for rolling stock, (ship) steam engines, and diesel engines. It was a successor ...

from 1934–1951. They were known as "Sikken" (Sik in singular, goats) by rail enthusiasts and "locomotor" by railway staff. Fifteen of these locomotives were rebuilt with a retractable crane. Many are preserved; regular service has stopped a few years ago. There is a well-known and accurate H0 scale model offered in various liveries by

Roco Roco, based in Salzburg, Austria, is a manufacturer of model railway equipment. History The company was founded in 1960 by Ing. Heinz Rössler and started with a plastic Minitanks series of military vehicles. After export to the USA became succ ...

. The design and operation was based on the simplest of things, which in effect made them very reliable. The locomotive was operated by design from the outside (side of engine) and wasn't equipped with a dead man device to stop the locomotive automatically in case of incapacity of the operator. There were two manual brakes: a handle and a foot brake. As the handle could be moved by in-train forces while dead-heading it was required to be fixed by a nut and bolt. Upon taking the locomotive into service again, it was necessary to loosen the nut and bolt. In some cases this was forgotten and the result was that the operator couldn't brake; many Siks have suffered collision damage due to this. A special design was implemented for coolant; the fuel tank with diesel was also the coolant for the engine. The theory was that the coolant would never be exhausted while the locomotive is in use. The locomotive didn't have an air pressure system. To obtain a

whistle A whistle is an instrument which produces sound from a stream of gas, most commonly air. It may be mouth-operated, or powered by air pressure, steam, or other means. Whistles vary in size from a small slide whistle or nose flute type to a lar ...

a device was put on top of the exhaust to use the flow of exhaust gases as the whistle air. This resulted in a very characteristic whistle sound (to imitate the sound, whistle a high-pitched tone while making a rolling R sound). This locomotive was mainly operated as a

shunter A switcher, shunter, yard pilot, switch engine, yard goat, or shifter is a small railroad locomotive used for manoeuvring railroad cars inside a rail yard in a process known as ''switching'' (US) or ''shunting'' (UK). Switchers are not inten ...

. Only a very few fully qualified train engineers/drivers have held a locomotor license.

Gallery

File:HUA-151600-Afbeelding van een goederentrein getrokken door de locomotor nr 279 serie 200 300 van de NS op het emplacement te Amersfoort.jpg,

Goods train Rail freight transport is the use of railroads and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers. A freight train, cargo train, or goods train is a group of freight cars (US) or goods wagons (International Union of Railways) hauled ...

pulled by Locomotor No. 279, in the

railyard A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or ...

Amersfoort Amersfoort () is a city and municipality in the province of Utrecht, Netherlands, about 20 km from the city of Utrecht and 40 km south east of Amsterdam. As of 1 December 2021, the municipality had a population of 158,531, making it the second- ...

; 1961. File:Rotterdam locomotief sik.jpg, NS Class 200 No. 347 in the

Maritime Museum Rotterdam The Maritime Museum Rotterdam is a maritime museum in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Dedicated to naval history, it was founded in 1874 by Prince Henry of the Netherlands. Next to the Maritime Museum lies the open-air Maritime Museum Harbour, whic ...

. File:355 Shunter fitted with telescopic crane - Station Amsterdam Centraal - 15 March 1986.jpg, Kraansik locomotor No. 355 in

Station Amsterdam Centraal Amsterdam Centraal Station ( nl, italic=no, Station Amsterdam Centraal ; abbreviation: Asd) is the largest railway station in Amsterdam, North Holland, the Netherlands. A major international railway hub, it is used by 192,000 passengers a day, m ...

; 1986. File:Locomotor_303.jpg, Locomotor NS 303. File:Winterswijk Transit Oost werkplaats (35303921441).jpg, NS Class 200 No. 347 in

Transit Oost Transit may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Transit'' (1979 film), a 1979 Israeli film * ''Transit'' (2005 film), a film produced by MTV and Staying-Alive about four people in countries in the world * ''Transit'' (2006 film), a 2006 ...

Winterswijk Winterswijk (; also known as ''Winterswiek'' or ''Wenters'') is a municipality and a town in the eastern Netherlands. It has a population of and is situated in the Achterhoek, which lies in the easternmost part of the province of Gelderland in th ...

. Behind it multiple unit DE-2 186; 20 June 2017.

References

External links

Stichting De Locomotor, in Dutch
{{NS locos 0200 Werkspoor locomotives B locomotives Diesel locomotives of the Netherlands Standard gauge locomotives of the Netherlands