Locomotives of The Western Australian Government Railways - Early Steam Locomotives

Early Steam Locomotives

The first WAGR locomotives were two 1879 2-6-0 tender engines, later classified as the M class, built in England in 1875 and shipped to WA by sea. They operated on the first government railway in Geraldton, some 450 km north of Perth. The opening of the Fremantle to Guildford railway in 1881 saw the use of two 0-6-0T tank engines from the British Robert Stephenson and Co, numbered Numbers 1 and 2 and later classified as the C Class in 1885. The C class engines were later given small tenders to increase fuel storage. C1 was later renamed 'Katie' and is currently preserved at the Rail Transport Museum.

The contractor responsible for the construction of the Fremantle-Guildford railway, John Robb, sold his locomotive to the WA government also in 1881, and it became Number 3. Number 3 became to prototype of the WAGR A class 2-6-0 tender locomotives. The A class locomotives were soon supplemented by the B class 4-6-0T tank engines which had twice the haulage capacity of the A class. During this time the WAGR had been greatly expanded over the Darling Scarp and into the large agricultural strip to the East, specifically to the centers of Chidlow, Northam and Toodyay (then Newcastle). With the beginning of WA gold rushes in 1888 the railways required massive expansion and in 1889 the WAGR received a larger version of the A class which had been used in the construction of the private Great Southern Railway in Albany, on the southern coast of Western Australia. The new locomotives were a vast improvement over previous types and became the WAGR G Class, of which a total of 72 were eventually ordered, becoming the railways' most numerous type for its entire history. The G class existed in two forms - the initial 2-6-0 configuration and a later 4-6-0 type with improved running stability. The G class were immensely successful on a wide range of duties, and although phased out of mainline workings in the early 20th Century, they lingered until the very end of steam in WA, with two examples still working as shunters at Bunbury in August 1972.