NZR F Class - Industrial Service

Industrial Service

The F class was one of the most versatile locomotives in NZR service, and this was also true of these locomotives in industrial service. As larger and more powerful locomotives started to displace the F class from regular service, many were sold into industrial service, working at coal mines, sawmills, and freezing works. Following the withdrawal of F 13 and F 163 in 1963, one could still find a F class locomotive at work in the bush or at a coal mine.

The F class, while a success on the NZR network, was not so much of a success on the roughly-laid bush tramways of New Zealand. Being heavier than the older A, C, and D class tank locomotives used on bush trams before, operators who used F class locomotives had to upgrade the standard of their track to accommodate these locomotives. Despite this, the locomotives were relatively reliable, and some were fitted with extra bunkers behind their cabs to increase their small fuel capacity.

The other applications where the F class found a useful second life were at freezing works and coal mines. Here, the locomotives were used as shunters, and in the case of coal mines, to run trains of empty NZR wagons to the loading bins and loaded wagons back to the NZR connection. These lines were usually of a higher standard than the bush tramways, and so no track modifications were required to accommodate these useful engines.

As the locomotives were particularly suited to conversion to petrol or diesel power, several locomotives were rebuilt as diesel locomotives when their boilers expired. The Auckland Farmers Freezing Company (AFFCo) had three such conversions, one at Moerewa, one at Auckland's Export Wharf, and another at Horotiu, in the 1960s, while Butler Bros. sawmill at Ruatapu on the West Coast had another.