toll tobuild nz locos in New Zealand ?

A story in the Nz Herald that they are considering building locos in New Zealand .
Most likely this will be in the form of rebuilding old locos , although where they will source them from is another question .
certainly the hillside work ofrce are skilled and experienced enough to do it . They will need to increase the numbers of workers though .
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/busi ... ction=rail .

From what ive read on local boards , toll is having to scrape together anylocos that will run , to keep the current traffic running , now there is quite large increases in traffic on the way .

David,

Question... if Toll were to start bringing in parts to build new locomotives, where would they turn? Alstom? GE? EMD? Other UK or continental builders? Japan? Just currious to know. Also, where have the bulk of the locomotives in Kiwi country been built? I know that GE built the DX class locomotives back in '72 or so, and there were EMD, British and even Mitsubishi built locomotives operating in New Zealand at one time.

Also, there was that article you posted on the rebuilding of the Aukland rail equipment (see link below), including the SA/SD locomotives. Are those EMD products or another manufacturer's? Just currious.

And my final question, were there any domestic locomotive builders in New Zealand? If so, are there any facilities that are still in existence that could be reactivated for new locomotive production?


Lots of questions, I know, but I'm not well versed on the railways of NZ (which is why I like chatting on the forums, I learn new things!).

As far as I know they already rebuilt some for Auckland suburban train service.

most diesels are either general electric , or general motors (Canada ) .
There is one english diesel in the heritage fleet , and one japanese diesel (dj class ) . dx class is general electric , da , db , dc , dft are general motors , ( im not sure if this is the same as emd or not ). Been a small country , the decision to standardise the fleet on american manufacterers is based on reducing the need for different spare parts , as well as the fact that the american ones have been more reliable , and better performers . electric locos are english however .

Nz has experience rebuilding diesel locos , indeed almost the entire fleet has been rebuilt to some extent . Locomotives have been rebuilt for toll railways in Tasmania , Australia as well .
There were no local diesel manufacterers , that ended with the demise of steam . some of the DA class were built in Australia by clyde egineering , and rebuilt there some 20 years later .

most of the work for the Auckland units involved the passenger cars , ( sa / sd etc ) , the locos are normal dc class , which recieved a paint job and overhaul . they havent proved to relaible since , so it may have just been a paint job .

David,

Interesting. As for your question on GM being the same as EMD, EMD is the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors. GM's production in Canada is GMD or GMDD (General Motors Diesel Division?), or something like that (I'm an ALCo. (American Locomotive Company) guy, so I'm not as well versed on the GM/GE licensees!).

Well, keep us up to date on these events as they unfold and let us know who they decide to build (or get parts to assemble domestically) for/from.

thanks komachi , i had an idea emd was general motors , but was not sure . Funny how similair there names are ( the two general that is ).

David Benton wrote:most of the work for the Auckland units involved the passenger cars , ( sa / sd etc ) , the locos are normal dc class , which recieved a paint job and overhaul . they havent proved to relaible since , so it may have just been a paint job .

My own pics, I visited New Zealand less than a month ago:

Great photos ,

I think the trains are as follows ,

the top photo is the ex Australian zigzag railway carriages , betwwen 2 d.c locos . the back one would be dead .

location i think is Westfield .

2nd , 3rd and 4th photos is zigzag carriages again , cant pick the location .

5th photo is the daily overlander service , from auckland to Wellington , somewhere in industrial south auckland , ( could be Westfield ?)

last two are the ex british rail mark 2 carriages , with commuter doors and narrow gauge bogies . top photo looks like mt wellington area , dont know the bottom one

This is their latest addition, MK II cars driving unit

thats the best photo of the sd driving cab ive seen yet . looks like its fibreglass , they really have done well with the refurbihment of the dmu units , and conversion of the mk11 stock .

more photos and news of the sd driving cars .

http://www.arc.govt.nz/arc/index.cfm?94 ... 8088911FC8

abit more on the proposal to build locos .
im abit surprised at the proposal top build a new workshop , i would think the best way would be to biuy back the hutt workshops form alsthom .
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?ObjectID=8500933

David Benton wrote:more photos and news of the sd driving cars .

http://www.arc.govt.nz/arc/index.cfm?94 ... 8088911FC8

There's this in that article

The SD “driving cab” is a unique type of carriage that increases train efficiency and capacity.

It provides a new way of controlling Auckland’s new SA Trains by allowing “push-pull” operation of the train with only one locomotive or engine.

Huh? NZ never had Cab-car operation before?
Heck, American Roads have had Cab-car [loco at one end, control car (often rather modified coach) at the other, bracketing a train of coaches] operation for decades (indeed, around the turn of the century there began a move to get rid of cab-cars since it was claimed they were more dangerous in collisions - which led to ideas like the Amtrack Cabbages, for example). But none the less, there are many cab-car operations in the US, and I guess I just figured that other countries did too (not everyplace will use EMUs/DMUs)

no, New Zealand has either had dmu / emu trains , or loco pulled carriages that are turned at each end .they played around with push pull in the 70s but never in operation .
these push pull sets are a stop gap measure (which means theyll be around 10 -20 years! ) . all new passenger cars will most likely be dmu / emu .