Construction and Design
The genesis of the AB class originated from the construction of A class 4-6-2 NO 409 at Addington Railway Workshops in 1906. A two-cylinder simple-expansion locomotive, 409 was initially classified AB to differentiate it from the four-cylinder compound A and AD class locomotives, which were by and large of a similar design although built as compounds. AB 409 was in reality the 'guinea pig' for what would become the most prolific type on the New Zealand Railways network, with construction beginning on a new prototype 4-6-2 in 1915.
The new locomotive, AB 608, was to a completely different design from AB 409 when it emerged from the Addington Workshops in 1915. Although largely similar to the A class, it had a new design of cab and boiler, which was fitted with a superheater after trials conducted on AB 409. It also had the distinctive Vanderbilt tender, which would become a hallmark of the AB class during its working life. This locomotive was to become the first of 141 similar locomotives built by various builders in New Zealand and the United Kingdom for NZGR.
Read more about this topic: NZR AB Class
Famous quotes containing the words construction and/or design:
“There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“With wonderful art he grinds into paint for his picture all his moods and experiences, so that all his forces may be brought to the encounter. Apparently writing without a particular design or responsibility, setting down his soliloquies from time to time, taking advantage of all his humors, when at length the hour comes to declare himself, he puts down in plain English, without quotation marks, what he, Thomas Carlyle, is ready to defend in the face of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)