The overwhelming majority of the diesel locomotives at work in Australia today were built either in Australia or in the USA, but when Australia’s railways began the transition from steam to diesel after World War II they purchased many of their new locomotives from British builders. The purpose of this article, which concentrates mainly on diesels bought by the various government-owned railway systems, is to shed some light on why they were bought, how they performed and why, after just a few years, the orders stopped.
Two factors – politics and economics – had a lot to do with the arrival of Britishbuilt diesels in Australia. In the years immediately after the war it was recognised in Australia that British industry had been badly battered by six years of fighting and it became Australian Government policy that Australia should buy as many products as possible from the United Kingdom to assist in its economic recovery. This policy meshed with the strong patriotic, cultural, familial and emotional links with ‘the Old Country’ that were held by much of Australia’s population.
There was also a very pragmatic reason for buying British diesels. Although there was a strong preference among many Australian railway officials for American diesels, Australia had only limited reserves of US dollars with which to buy them, whereas there were no restrictions on buying within the Sterling bloc. Australia’s railways, badly run down after decades of under-investment, and strained to breaking point by wartime conditions, were not able to wait until the financial situation changed.
British Railways began its dieselisation programme in the 1950s by buying a multitude of designs from many different builders and it soon became apparent that not all diesel locomotives were created equal. Some were very successful, some had to be modified or rebuilt before they could do a proper day’s work and some were simply troublesome failures. The Australian railways had exactly the same experience with their British diesels.
The company that had the greatest success in Australia, both in the number of locomotives sold and in the good reputation they gained, was English Electric. Its first Australian locomotive order was for ten 3ft 6in gauge 600hp2 Bo-Bo diesel-electrics for main line service on the Tasmanian Government Railways (TGR), which was quickly followed by two further orders that brought the total to 32. The first twenty were built by the Vulcan Foundry and the final twelve came from EE’s Dick Kerr works in Preston. Delivered between 1950 and 1952, they were numbered X1 to X32 by the TGR and were the first main line diesels to enter service in Australia.
The X Class was used on both passenger and goods trains, and their introduction resulted in the almost complete dieselisation of the TGR’s main lines. The fact that the TGR considered a 600hp diesel to be a main
