Queenslanders in Tasmania
I thought that this week we might spend some time down in Tasmania. I visited there with the kids and my first wife in the early 1990s and then went back to live there in 1996 - before finally heading to Queensland to get warm in 2004.
Tasmania was definitely a place of contrasts and that was certainly obvious when it came to the railways down there. Some of the most unusual steam locos in Australia ran in Tasmania on both the mainline and the 2′ gauge tramways. They were one of the first states to introduce diesel locomotives; they were one of the first states to introduce 2000 hp mainline locos and yet they persisted with vacuum brakes, couldn’t make a profit and quickly gave up their railways to the Commonwealth when the Federal Government offered to take over.
And it was after the Commonwealth took over that the face of Tasmanian railways really began to change. Locos from Queensland and South Australia were brought in to ease a shortage of locomotives that had been allowed to develop.
Among the first foreigners to to arrive from the north were the 45 members of the Queensland Railways 1300 class. These English Electric locos originally entered service in 1967 and were rated at 1795 hp. While all the locos were shipped to Tasmania not all entered service but those that did were reclassified as the ZC class.
Here is ZC41 laying over at Hobart in the early 1990s.
These locos had some interesting travels over the years. They went from Queensland to Tasmania and from there some moved on to Africa, Malaysia and South Australia while others were scrapped and a few more were left in service in Tassie.
The locos that went to South Australia were rebuilt into the MKA class and ran on BHP’s iron ore lines in that state. Some of those that went to Africa and Malaysia came back to Australia where they too were rebuilt into the MKA class and sold to Pacific National for use in Queensland - where they were universally disliked and spent quite some time in storage at Gympie - and now three of them are back in Tasmania.
Contrast the above photo with this one of ZC32 in a rather sad and sorry state at Don River. This loco was originally going to be shipped to Western Australia but the deal for this and two of its sisters fell through.
You’ll find more photos of the ZC class and a short movie clip of them in action on this page of the Tasmanian Railway Index.
September 21st, 2007 at 4:09 am
[...] Earlier in the week I talked about some Queensland locomotives that were sent down to Tasmania after the Commonwealth took over and I showed you a photo of the QR1300/Tasrail ZC class. [...]