Australian National was formed in 1976 with the merging of the South
Australian
Railways (SAR), the Commonwealth Railways (CR), and the Tasmanian
Government
Railways (TGR). The latter later became known as TasRail. This was one
of
the few good things to come out of the Whitlam Government. SAR locos
had
numeric class designations, while CR locos had alphabetic class
designations.
Those classes beginning with "N" were used on the narrow gauge lines.
The
last two had some interesting stories behind these designations.
The creation of National Rail was to result in the loss of much of
AN's intercapital freight, and this caused a downturn. In 1997, the
Federal Government
split AN up into three different sections, and sold them off.
The maintenance and intrastate South Australian freight services have
been
sold to Australia Southern Railroad (ASR), a consortium
consisting of Genesee and Wyoming Inc, and Clyde Engineering and
Transfield. In October 2000, ASR and Westrail were merged to become Australian
Rail Group (ARG), following Genesee and Wyoming's purchase of
Westrail upon privatisation. ASR
own all operational mainland locos, apart from the AN, BL and DL
classes, which are used by National Rail (now Pacific National).
ASR has around 100 locos in its fleet, these being from the 422, 500,
600,
700, 830, 930, ALF, CK, CLF, CLP, DA, GM, and NJ classes. They
have
also taken over BHP's operations at Whyalla,
and
now operate the latter's DE class locos.
ARG's locos with alphanumeric numbers are likely to be renumbered to an
all-numeric
numbering system.
Those locos now in ASR's livery are: 2201-6, 2208, 2210, 2212-2216,
508, 527, 703-704, 844, 847, 851, 859, ALF18-24, CLF1-5, CLF6-8,
CLP9-14, CLP16-17, DA4-7 (includes 904), GM37, GM40,
GM42-44,
GM46, 1601-1602 (NJ1-2), 1604-1605 (NJ4-5), as well
as ex-BHP DE1, DE3-4, DE7 and DE8 at Whyalla. 42207 also has a new
livery,
looking more like the old Freightcorp livery.
The interstate passenger services (Indian-Pacific, Ghan,
Overland) have been sold to the Great Southern Railway (GSR),
consisting of SERCO, Rail America, and Macquarie Bank. GSR do not own
any
locos, and PacNat handle the haulage on their services.
The Tasmanian freight services have been sold to the Australian Transport Network (ATN), owned by Wisconsin Central (who also bought and now operate TranzRail, the former NZR), and Faye Richwhite & Berkshire. They own all operational TasRail locos, and more loco rebuilds are possible. ATN have also started mainland operations; more information is on the Private Operators page. ATN have recently been bought by Pacific National.
For convenience, I will cover all AN locos here for the time being.
In February 2006, ASR was split up, as part was purchased by
QRNational,
and Genesee and Wyoming Australia
(GWA) took over the remainder (this
being the SA
freight business). See the Fleetlist page
for a list of which locos are going to which operator. QRN has around
25 operational locos and GWA has around 60 operational locos.
508; 1603, 1606, ALF18, ALF22, CLF5 and GM47 are in the GWA livery.
CLP13 is in the QRN livery.
Many of AN's locos were used by National Rail, until the latter's
own loco
contract was completed.
Prior to the sale and splitting up, AN operated around 170 locomotives
on
some 6100km of track.
There is a separate site - TasTrain - for information
on
the former TasRail (and now ATN) locomotives.
Commonwealth Railways (CR), Australian National (ANR/AN), Australia Southern Railroad (ASR)
Locomotive Page Introduction
© Copyright John Cleverdon