BRITISH LOCOMOTIVES OUTLIVE AMERICAN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 324, 9 April 1928, Page 12

BRITISH LOCOMOTIVES OUTLIVE AMERICAN

ENGINES ON SCRAP-HEAP Among the machinery that is being dismantled at the Newmarket Railway Workshops are several American locomotives which were built in Pennsylvania in 1901, and which have run their course on the New Zealand lines. The comparatively short life of these engines to that of British-built engines which have been on the rails since the middle seventies, and which are still going strong, is held by advocates of British manufacture to be an example of English superiority in locomotive construction. New Zealand has not imported any locomotives since 1901, except from Britain, with the exception of 10 engines ordered from the Baldwin Woi'ks (Philadelphia) during the war, when Britain was not in a position to fill an order. Practically ail the locomotives now required in New Zealand are manufactured fn the Dominion (though this apparently involves higher costs of construction). During the last two years British firms have been singularly unsuccessful when orders have been placed for locomotives by the South African railways. Discussion on the subject has been general, and the reasons put forward for the failure of Home makers have not been convincing. Up 1 ill about five years ago British firms had made about 90 per cent, of the locomotives used in South Africa, but since then foreign firms have increased their hold on that market to a disturbing degree, particularly in the heavy types of engines used for long-distance trains.