NZR DSA class

The New Zealand Railways D^SA class was a class of 0-6-0DM diesel-mechanical locomotives built by W. G. Bagnall, Hunslet, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and Vulcan Foundry for the Drewry Car Co. They were built between 1953 and 1968.

Following on from the success of the initial batch of D^S class 0-6-0DM shunting locomotives, NZR management decided to acquire further locomotives of this type. These locomotives would be similar to the D^S class, and would be allocated to the major centres where they would be used primarily as shunting locomotives. As they would be slightly heavier, these locomotives were allocated the D^SA classification.

The first batch of seven D^SA class locomotives arrived in 1953 from the Drewry Car Company, with another fourteen coming from that maker the following year. NZR also placed orders in 1954 with W. G. Bagnall and Hunslet for a further ten and fifteen locomotives respectively, which were delivered in 1956-57 by Bagnall and 1954-58 by Hunslet. After this, no further D^SAs were purchased until NZR placed an order with Mitsubishi Heavy Engineering for a further ten locomotives in 1967, all of which were delivered later that year.

Designated as maker's model A-2, these locomotives were built by the Vulcan Foundry of English Electric for the Drewry Car Company. They weighed 29.5 tons ready for service, and were powered by a Gardner 8L3 diesel engine producing 204 hp. The driving wheels were 39¾", the same size as that of the D^S class. All entered service between November 1953 and June 1954, and were based mostly in the North Island. However two locomotives, D^SA's 218 and 234, were reallocated to the South Island and were noted in January 1977 as being based at Invercargill.

Visually, the Drewry D^SA was very similar to the earlier D^S class, although the upper half of the cab tapered inwards as opposed to the straight-sided cab of the D^S. Most retained their original red livery to the end of their service with NZR although two, DSA 265 (pre-TMS D^SA 221) and DSA 401 (pre-TMS D^SA 235) did receive the International Orange livery at NZR Otahuhu Workshops in 1982 and 1983 respectively.

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Wikipedia