NZR UA class

The NZR UA class was a class of six 4-6-0 Ten Wheeler steam locomotives built by the Scottish firm of Sharp Stewart and Company for New Zealand Railways and delivered in 1899. They were bought to ease a motive power shortage that the railway's own workshops could not keep up with: after the Locomotive Superintendent's 1898 annual report called more engines absolutely necessary, he was allowed to buy sixteen 4-6-0 locomotives, ten from Baldwin and six from Sharp Stewart. The design was based on the U class but had smaller driving wheels giving higher tractive effort, a higher boiler pressure, piston valves, low mounted running boards and splashers over the drivers. Three each were first stationed at Invercargill and Dunedin to run express passenger services between those cities, and the class stayed mostly in the south. Footplate men found them finely built but hard to fire. A few received superheated boilers in the 1920s, which later went to UC class engines, and the class was gone before the end of the 1930s.