Some Memories of the new D~J Locomotives

摘要

Prior to obtaining the D's the NZR ordered five D~I class from English Electric of Australia. These were meant to be the prototypes for the final dieselisation of the South Island and I cannot remember any particular problems with them. However, the story was that in view of the size of the order, finance was obtained from the World Bank and this came with strings attached, one of which was that it had to be the cheapest tender unless there were very good reasons otherwise. When the tenders came in, Mitsubishi had the cheapest tender, but not by much I believe. English Electric was so confident of getting the order, and with Preston in England having a slack period, they actually started to manufacture traction motors. English Electric planned to send the traction motors to their Australian plant for fitting to the locomotives. One pleasing aspect of the locomotive's specification the NZR head office management liked was that, with a Caterpillar motor, the new locomotives were unlikely to give very much trouble.