NZR N Class - Construction

Construction

Despite the Long Depression of the 1880s, the young New Zealand railway network continued to expand and additional motive power was required. The New Zealand Railways Department had normally ordered locomotives from England up until this time, though it had previously bought locomotives from United States manufacturers (such as the Rogers K class), and in 1885 it placed an order with Baldwin, whose first New Zealand locomotives were the T class, to construct the six original members of the N class, which entered service between October and December 1885.

Six years later the WMR required additional motive power to handle the growing traffic on their line from Wellington to Longburn, just south of Palmerston North. Its typical supplier of equipment was Baldwin, who offered the WMR a locomotive similar to the N class. The WMR ordered two such locomotives and they entered service as Nos. 9 and 10. They proved to be more efficient than the 1885 batch, and in an attempt to match these efficiencies the government converted N 27 into a Vauclain compound, but with little success.

In 1901, the government ordered four similar locomotives.