Tasmanian Government Railways X class

The X class is a class of diesel locomotives built by English Electric for the Tasmanian Government Railways between 1950 and 1952, the first class of diesel locomotive to enter mainline service on a government owned railway in Australia. In 1946 the railways invited tenders for five to ten diesel-electric locomotives, which English Electric won, and a second batch of ten and a third of twelve were ordered in 1948 and 1949. The first 20 were manufactured by the Vulcan Foundry under contract to English Electric and the remaining 12 at the Dick, Kerr and Company works, and the first two units entered service on 13 September 1950. The X class was the first locomotive design in Australia with multi-unit capacity, allowing up to three locomotives to be controlled from the leading one. Built with components designed for branch line and shunting services, the class proved very successful on main line heavy goods duties because its light axle loading let it work on a wide variety of lines.