NZR Locomotives

A summary of published research

The history of the locomotives used by the New Zealand Government Railways (NZR) is both intriguing and complex, particularly during the early years. This is brought out in several published works which attempt to unravel the complexities of early numbering and classification systems. This page and its sub-pages are intended intended to be able to be expanded to capture any level of detail desired about New Zealand railway locomotives.

The very early railway development in New Zealand was authorised by the Provincial Councils of the time, and all independent of each other, so any numbering of locomotives was also without any consideration of how things might develop in the future. It was also a period when locomotives tended to get allocated names, with some some rules around what types of locomotives received what type of name. By the time the Provincial Governments were abolished in 1876, a structure for a national railway network was already taking shape but it was not until two years later when the Railways Department and the Public Works Department were separated as two separate entities, the Railway Department in charge of running trains and the Public Works Department in charge of building railway lines (among other things), that serious thought was given to how such things as a national locomotive numbering system could be established. Given the haphazard start to railways in New Zealand, and the time that has elapsed since then, it is little wonder that understanding all the steps along the way could become a challenging task, one that was ultimately taken up by a number of different researchers.

The earliest formal publication devoted to NZR locomotives was curiously published in the U.S.A., the work of Tom McGavin, summarising the results of the work of several NZR&LS members. An address was given to Society members by Tom in 1950 and a duplicated transcript of the talk made available. An expanded version of that, with illustrations, was then published by the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society in their "Bulletin 81" in the U.S.A. The work was titled ["The Steam Locomotives of New Zealand Government Railways 1872 - 1949"]. From this came the first New Zealand publication, "Steam Locomotives of New Zealand Since 1863" (1st edition 1950) with a second revised and enlarged edition in 1961. A complete update of the material covered by these early publications resulted in a set of three new volumes, Part one by T.A. McGavin dealing with 1863 - 1900, the other two by E.J. McClare, Part two dealing with 1900 - 1930 and Part three 1930 - 1971. These booklets still provide a very handy ready reference of the various steam locomotive types used throughout NZR's history.

The first attempt to document all the steam locomotives used on New Zealand railways was carried out by Bill LLoyd, and presented in a publication "NZR Steam Locomotive Lists 1880 - 1957". This was issued by the Railway and Locomotive Society as Supplement No.5 to their quarterly publication "The New Zealand Railway Observer". This first list was however not a complete story as it used the 1880 locomotive list (issued as an appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives) as a starting point, with no attempt to unravel and reconcile any earlier numbering systems. A further 10 years of research resulted in the publication of the first formal attempt to provide a complete register. The "Register of New Zealand Railways Steam Locomotives, published in 1974. 27 years later after much further research, an enlarged and revised edition was published in 2002. Both these edition are serious reference works, listing every locomotive of every class that worked on Government railway lines.

At the time of the centenary of New Zealand railways in 1963, a new work was published as a historical record of all classes of locomotives used by the New Zealand Government Railways, including Steam, Electric and Diesel. This was a collaborative effort by A. N. Palmer and W. W. Stewart and was titled "Cavalcade of New Zealand Locomotives" this is still a very useful reference, outlining all the locomotive types from 1863 to 1955 for the 1st edition, and to 1965 for the 2nd edition with a convenient Locomotive index and list of builders at the back.

As if to formally close off the Steam era, in 2011, Sean Miller published an extensive work titled "The NZR Steam Locomotive". This beautifully presented reference work covers each locomotive type, including a short section on unclassified locos, steam railcars etc. It has many fine illustrations but does lack some details you would expect to be able to find in such a well presented publications.

During the early 1960's, Peter Dyer was busy compiling data on the Public Works Department steam locomotives, a more challenging task given the dearth of early records that existed. He subsequently published a booklet in 1966 titled "Steam Locomotives of the New Zealand Public Works Department".

A separate branch of locomotive research was carried out by Gerald Petrie, looking at steam locomotives in New Zealand other than those operated by NZR. This resulted in the publication of "New Zealand Steam Locomotives by Official Number" in 1993. This was followed 3 years later by "In the Beginning", a detailed look at all locomotive data between 1863 and 1877 in an attempt to unravel most of the mysteries that surrounded certain old locomotives. Then in 2007 a detailed analysis of all available data relating to the early numbering of New Zealand Railways locomotives "Locomotive Numbering from 1890 back to 1863 - The Evidence". This is a fully documented research effort with scanned copies of all early documents found to support the conclusions reached.

While the focus of the above publications has really been on steam locomotives, soon after Tom McGavin's first publications he started producing what became a series of booklets reviewing all the motive power that was in use by NZR. While the titles varied a bit, they seemed to settle on "NZR Locomotives and Railcars" with a new issue every few years between 1953 and 1990. Among those issues there were also one publication called "NZR Locomotives", a Railmac publication from 1981, and two more extensive 'pocket' books compiled by Geoffrey Churchman from 1988 and 1992. These smaller format books listed all operating locomotives in New Zealand and grouped by NZR, Industrial and Museum.There was also a 1980 publication by E. J. McClare dedicated to diesels titled "New Zealand railways Diesels". In 2002 David Parsons published a book titled New Zealand Motive Power 2002 that reviewed each class of locomotive in use at that time. This was followed up with an updated version in 2018, so altogether there is a pretty comprehensive record of all railway motive power in New Zealand.

Locomotive Classification

The study of locomotive classification attempts to come to an understanding of why particular locomotive groups received the classification letters they ended up with, and why particular numbers were allocated to particular locomotives, perhaps not so important to the general rail-fan, but a fascinating conundrum to the serious researcher. Sean Millar made this his particular challenge and in 2001 he published a slightly controversial book titled "From A to Y excluding I", which was a first attempt at researching locomotive classification and included a fair bit of speculation where no hard evidence could be sourced, and yet a conclusion wanted to be reached. This was followed in 2018 by a new work, "Classifying New Zealand's Locomotives" being a more serious look at the classification issue and includes the diesel and electric locomotives.

There is of course much more published material available, particularly articles in periodicals like the Observer and Railfan, however these tend to look at individual locomotive classes rather than the collection as a whole. it is hoped that descriptions of these articles too will eventually be included in this wiki to help researchers locate all relevant material.

Locomotive Types

A locomotive's wheel arrangement can be described in a number of different ways, for steam locomotives, the system commonly used in New Zealand is known at the Whyte System where a sequence of numbers, separated by dashes, denotes the wheel arrangement e.g. 4-6-2. Appended to this code can be a series of letters to signify that it is a particular kind of tank locomotive e.g. 0-4-2ST. Apart from the number/letter code, some steam locomotives also had names for the particular type of wheel arrangement e.g. 4-6-2 was also known as a 'Pacific'. There is a second system used primarily in Europe so known as the Continental System and caters for steam, diesel and electric locomotives within the one system. Here in New Zealand we use that system for defining our diesel and electric locomotives, so we need to understand two systems to be able to record the wheel arrangement of any locomotive in New Zealand.

Tables of NZ Locomotive Classes

Steam Locomotives

Steam Locomotives - Imperial units

Class	Originally	Type	No Built	Builder	Start Year	End Year	Weight	Tractive Effort	Boiler Pres	Drivers	Cylinders	Length
A		0-4-0T	12	Dubs	1874/5	1906	11	3,072	120	30	2/ 8 x 15	17'-11"
			2	Yorkshire	1875
A		0-4-0T	3	Mills	1875	1885	8	3,413	100	24	2/ 8 x 16	16'-6"
A		0-4-0ST	2	Shanks	1876	1882	10	3,004	110	30	2/ 8 x 16	unknown
A		4-6-2	8	Addington	1906-8	1969	76.5	17,000	225	54	2/ 12 x 22 + 2/ 19 x 22	57'-2"
			50	Price	1907-14
Aa		4-6-2	10	Baldwin	1915	1957	88.5	21,580	170	49	2/ 18 x 24	58'-5"
Ab		4-6-2	38	Addington	1915-24	1969	84.7	20,030	180	54	2/ 17 x 26	62'-5"
			83	North British
			20	Price
	ex Wab		11	Hillside
Ab	ex A class	4-6-2	1	Addington	1915	1969	77	20,030	180	54	2/ 17 x 26	56'-10"
Ad	ex A class	4-6-2	30	reclassification	1910	1915	80.55	20,060	190	54	2/ 18 x 22	57'-2"
B		0-4-4-0T	2	Avonside	1874	1896	28	6,912	130	39	4/ 9 x 16	31'-2"
B		4-8-0	4	Sharp Stewart	1899	1967	65	18,662	175	42.25	2/ 16 x 22	51'-9"
			6	Addington
Ba		4-8-0	10	Addington	1911	1969	69.4	18,550	175	42.5	2/ 16 x 22	52'-3"
Bb		4-8-0	30	Price	1915	1968	69	20,940	175	42.5	2/ 17 x 22	52'-8"
Bc		2-8-2	1	Baldwin	1908	1927	71.4	16,080	200	43	2/11.5 x 20 + 2/19 x 20	55'-7"
C		0-4-0ST	16	Neilson	1874	1879	15.7	5,198	120	30	2/ 9.5 x 18	21'-3"
				Dubs	1875
C	ex C 0-4-0ST	0-4-2ST	16	reclassification	1879	1922	15.7	5,198	120	30	2/ 9.5 x 18	21'-3"
C		2-6-2	12	Hutt	1930	1968	66.5	15,330	200	45	2/ 14 x 22	54'-6"
			12	Hillside
D		2-4-0T	17	Neilson	1874	1927	14.7	4,693	130	36	2/ 9.5 x 18	21'-6"
			5	Dubs
			11	Scott
D		0-4-0T	1	Clayton	1930	1936	25.7	5,600	300	42	4/ 7 x 10	22'-4"
E	Ex D&PCR	0-4-4-0T	2	Vulcan	1873	1899	28	8,320	130	45	4/ 10 x 18	32'-10"
E		0-4-4-0T	6	Avonside	1875	1899	34	9,600	130	39	4/ 10 x 18	34'-2"
E		2-6-6-0T	1	Petone	1906	1917	65.8	24,200	200	36.5	4/ 9.5 x 18 + 4/16 x 18	39'-9"
F		0-6-0ST	26	Avonside	1873	1964	19.2	5,733	130	36	2/ 10.5 x 18	32'-4"
			1	Black Hawthorn
			21	Dubs
			12	Neilson
			12	Stephenson
			5	Yorkshire
			11	Vulcan
Fa	ex F class	0-6-0T	5	Addington	1892	1943	24	9,090	160	36.5	2/ 12 x 18	23'-4"
			3	Newmarket
			4	Petone
Fa	13 ex Fb class	0-6-2T	12	reclassification	1905	1943	29.3	9,090	160	36.5	2/ 12 x 18	27'-1"
			6	Addington	1902-3
	ex F class		1	Westport
Fb	ex Fa class	0-6-2T	13	recassification	1900-5	1905	29.3	9,090	160	36.5	2/ 12 x 18	27'-1"
G		4-4-0ST	4	Black Hawthorn	1875	1919	18.2	5,733	130	36	4/ 10.5 x 18	24'-3"
G		4-6-2+2-6-4	3	Beyer Peacock	1929	1937	145.8	51,584	200	57	6/ 16.5 x 24	84'-4"
G	ex G class	4-6-2	6	Hillside	1937	1956	98.5	25,792	200	57	3/ 16.5 x 24	64'-6"
H		0-4-2T	4	Avonside	1877	1956		34	19,510		130	32 + 23.5	2/14 x 16 + 2/12 x 14		24'-1"
			2	Neilson	1886			36

J

2-6-0

6

Avonside

1875-76

1935

38

9,707

130

42

2/ 14 x 20

41' 1"

4

Dubs

1879

5

Neilson

1880

5

Stephenson

1880

12

Vulcan

1883-85

J

4-8-2

40

North British

1939

1971

109

24,960

200

54

2/ 18 x 26

67'-0"

Ja

4-8-2

35

Hillside

1946-56

1971

109.45

24,960

200

54

2/ 18 x 26

67'-0"

16

North British

1952

Jb

Ex J class

4-8-2

12

1948

1971

108.9

24,960

200

54

2/ 18 x 26

67'-0"

K

2-4-2

8

Rogers

1878

1927

42.5

6,240

130

48

2/ 12 x 20

45'-7"

K

4-8-4

30

Hutt

1932

1967

135.6

30,815

200

54

2/ 20 x 26

69'-8"

Ka

4-8-4

25

Hutt

1939

1967

145.9

30,815

200

54

2/ 20 x 26

69'-8"

10

Hillside

Kb

4-8-4

6

Hillside

1939

1969

147.7

30815/36815

200

54/36

2/ 20 x 26 + 2/ 7 x 10

69'-8"

L

2-4-0T

10

Avonside

1878

1903

18.5

5,733

130

36

2/ 10.5 x 18

24'-1"

L

ex L(Av)

4-4-2T

2

Neilson

1899

1939

31.5

7,806

160

42.5

2/ 12 x 18

29'-9"

1

Hillside

1900

1

Petone

L

ex L (Av)

4-4-0T

2

Newmarket

1900-02

1939

26.6

7,806

160

42.5

2/ 12 x 18

26'-2"

ex L (Av)

1

Petone

La

4-4-2T

3

Petone

1903

1939

31.5

7,806

160

42.5

2/ 12 x 18

29'-9"

La

4-4-0T

5

Nasmyth

1895

1928

25

6,451

140

45

M

0-6-0T

4

Hunslet

1876

1928

27.7

10,240

160

42

2/ 12.25 x 20

25'-5"

N

2-6-2

6

Baldwin

1885

1934

45.2

9,551

130

49

2/ 15 x 20

49'-2

ex WMR

2

Baldwin

1895

50.8

10,285

140

50'-2'

4

Baldwin

1901

54.2

14,660

200

48'-11"

Na

ex WMR

2-6-2

1

Baldwin

1894/1908

1929

54.5

9,700

180

49

2/ 10 x 20 + 2/ 17 x 20

50'-10"

1

Baldwin

1897/1908

1929

57.1

10,800

200

50'-5"

Nc

ex WMR

2-6-2

1

Baldwin

1902/1908

1931

65.1

10,800

200

49

2/ 10 x 20 + 2/ 17 x 21

54'-10"

1

Baldwin

1904/1908

1931

63.3

52'-2"

O

2-8-0

6

Baldwin

1885

1922

45.5

11,700

130

36

2/ 15 x 18

46'-3"

Oa

ex WMR

2-8-0

1

Baldwin

1894/1908

1929

57.4

13,600

180

43

2/ 11 x 20 + 2/ 18 x 20

51'-8"

Ob

ex WMR

2-8-0

2

Baldwin

1888/1908

1931

57.6

15,717

165

43

2/ 16 x 20

51'-3"

Oc

ex WMR

2-8-0

1

Baldwin

1897/1908

1930

62.8

15,110

200

43

2/ 11 x 20 + 2/ 18 x 20

51'-8"

P

0-6-0T

2

Davidson/Hunslet

1876

1885

12

3,328

130

28

2/ 8 x 14

20'-1"

P

2-8-0

10

Nasmyth

1886

1930

52.2

11,415

130

41

2/ 15 x 20

50'-7"

Q

ex R&AFR

2-4-4T

2

Rogers

1879

1901

29

4,719

130

48

2/ 11 x 18

35'-4"

Q

4-6-2

13

Baldwin

1901

1957

72.1

18,340

200

49

2/ 16 x 22

55'-4"

R

0-6-4T

18

Avonside

1879

1936

30

6,936

130

36

2/12.25 x 16

31'-3"

S

0-4-0T

1

Hughes

1876

1886

10

3,391

110

30

2/ 8.5 x 16

unknown

S

0-6-4T

7

Avonside

1882

1927

36

7,705

130

36.5

2/ 13 x 16

33'

T

2-8-0

6

Baldwin

1880

1928

42.2

11,700

130

36

2/ 15 x 18

44'-10"

U

4-6-0

9

Addington

1894

1959

61.5

12,136

160

54

2/ 16 x 20

50'

U

10

Baldwin

1898

1902

57.2

14,591

175

49

2/ 16 x 20

49'-6"

Ua

4-6-0

6

Sharp Stewart

1899

1937

62.2

14,591

175

49

2/ 16 x 20

49'-3"

Ub

ex U (Baldwin)

4-6-0

10

reclassified

1902

1928

57.2

14,591

175

49

2/ 16 x 20

49'-6"

10

Baldwin

1901

1957

58.3

16,670

200

49

2/ 16 x 20

49'-2"

Ub

4-6-0

1

Brooks

1901

1933

63.6

18,340

200

49

2/ 16 x 22

49'-5"

Ub

4-6-0

1

Richmond

1902

1933

59.6

16,510

180

49

2/ 16 x 22

48'-4"

Uc

4-6-0

10

Sharp Stewart

1901

1959

62.6

18,340

200

49

2/ 16 x 22

49'-6"

Ud

ex WMR

4-6-0

2

Baldwin

1908

1930

66.8

15,280

185

58

2/ 16.5 x 22

51'-6"

V

2-6-2

10

Nasmyth

1885/6

1927

51.2

9,551

130

49

2/ 15 x 20

48'-9"

ex WMR

3

1885

1927

52.3

10,285

140

W

2-6-2T

2

Addington

1889

1959

37.2

12,888

150

36.5

2/ 14 x 20

29'-5"

Wa

2-6-2T

5

Addington

1892

1962

37.2

12,623

160

39.75

2/ 14 x 20

29'-4"

6

Hillside

1898

Wa

ex J class

2-6-2T

1

Petone

1917

1932

38.7

11,806

160

42.5

2/ 14 x 20

30'-6"

2

Newmarket

1918

1933

1

Hillside

1919

1936

Wab

2-6-4T

1

Addington

1918

1963

71.5

22,260

200

54

2/ 17 x 26

44'-5"

10

Hillside

1923-7

3

Price

1923-7

ex Ws class

16

1932-5

Wb

ex Wa

2-6-2T

12

reclassified

1899

1957

40.7

13,412

170

39.75

2/ 14 x 20

32'-9"

Wd

ex Wa

18

Baldwin

1901

1936

43.7

15,780

200

39.75

2/ 14 x 20

34'-9"

We

ex B (Sharp)

4-6-4T

1

Addington

1902

1969

55.2

19,080

180

42.5

2/ 16 x 22

35'-9"

2

Hillside

Wf

2-6-4T

10

Addington

1904

1969

43.7

15,330

200

45

2/ 14 x 22

34'-2"

16

Hillside

15

Price

Wg

4-6-4T

20

Hillside

1910

1956

50

15,330

200

45

2/ 14 x 22

36'-10"

Wh

ex WMR

2-6-2T

3

Manning Wardel

1884-6

1927

32.9

7,846

140

37

2/ 12 x 18

29'-6"

Wj

ex WMR

2-8-4T

1

Baldwin

1908

1927

53.6

21,510

200

43

2/ 17 x 20

37'-2"

Ws

2-6-4T

1

Addington

1917

1932-5

71.5

22,260

200

54

2/ 17 x 26

44'5"

10

Hillside

1923-7

5

Price

1923-7

Ww

4-6-4T

50

Hillside

1913

1969

51.5

16,910

180

45

2/ 15.5 x 22

37'

ex Wg class

10

Hutt

1940

4

Hutt

1950-2

X

4-8-2

18

Addington

1909

1957

94/95.15

45

2/ 13.5 x 22 + 2/ 22 x 22

56'-10"

Y

ex PWD

0-6-0T

3

Hunslet

1938

1958

25.8

10,816

160

40

2/ 13 x 20

22'-11"