Introduction
In 1995, Tranz Rail purchased 19 1460 class and six 1502 class with the intention of rebuilding them for service in New Zealand. Seven 1460 and one 1502 class were delivered to Auckland in early 1998 and unloaded at the Port of Auckland before they were towed to the Hutt Workshops in Wellington. Two more batches followed, one on the inter-island rail ferry DEV Arahura returning from Brisbane after a heavy engineering inspection.
With the first locomotives in New Zealand, Tranz Rail came up with two variants: the DQ class, rebuilt with a new cab and low nose and painted in the standard 'Cato Blue' scheme, with dynamic brakes, a computerised control system and rebuilt engine; and the QR class, overhauled with auto-transition couplings and ditch lights and repainted in a variant of the 'Cato Blue' livery, as helper locomotives.
The first locomotive rebuilt was ex-QR 1521 out-shopped in October 1996 as DQ15215, a temporary number that combined the Queensland number with a TMS check digit. It was shortly re-numbered as DQ 6007, with all further DQ class renumbered in the 60xx series. It had non-standard headlight numberboards below the headlight assembly on the front wall of the cab: the rest had them on either side of the headlights.
The first two QR class, 2027 and 2065, entered service one year later in October 1997.
1499, 1500 and 1501 were retained at Hutt Workshops as a source of spare parts. 1499 was reduced to a stripped frame while 1500 and 1501 remained largely intact. They were the only QR class not used in service in New Zealand.
Read more about this topic: NZR DQ Class
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