New South Wales, Australia
´Bluescoped´, D34 has had its new owners emblems applied over the old BHP livery. It is seen here at Cringila on September 20th, 2004.
© Chris Stratton
| Rather than being a Class of locomotives, D34 is actually a unique locomotive, being built to the specific requirements of its 'first' owners Australian Iron and Steel Propriety. AIS at Port Kembla was a division of the Broken Hill Propriety Compamy [BHP], it used the D numbering system for all it's locomotives according to their engine Horsepower, apart from their 1800HP locomotive, which was known as D34. The locomotive was designed by English Electric at built at the Rocklea Works in Queensland towards the end of 1968 and into 1969. After trials within the Queensland area, D34 was transferred from Rocklea to Port Kembla was by the way of normal revenue earning freight trains, arriving on May 3rd 1969. After acceptance examinations, D34 entered service on May 5th 1969. Some early teething problems included failures of the Ausiliary generator and radiator fan clutch bearings, but these were soon sorted out and D34 settled down to duties that were exclusively on traffic to and from the coal mines, such as Wongawilli. Another issue with the locomotive was the rigidity of the bogies which meant excessive wear on the infrastructure, a short term remedy for this included the fitting of flange lubricators, which reduced the problem significantly. That said this issue later led to the locomotive being restricted to duties within the Port Kembla site. It was also commented that 'Queen Mary', as she was nicknamed, would find any infrastructure defect on the site, normally these 'findings' led to the locomotive being derailed! For over 20 years 'Queen Mary' was the largest Diesel amongst the AIS/BHP Fleet, it was used widely and proved quite reliable, being well liked by both maintenance and operating teams. It had a number of mishaps during it's career, the cab seeming to bear most of the damage, but it was skillfully rebuilt on each occasion. After over 23 years in service, the company purchased some 'sister' locos of D34 from BHP Iron Ore. These locomotives has been used by to haul Iron ore trains by Goldsworthy Mining Limited in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. With the purchase of these Goldsworthy A Class locomotives in 1992, and their introduction as the BHP K class in 1993, D34 ventured out less and less until it was restricted to 'local' duties due to the damage it had caused to infrastructure because it frames were too rigid. D34 has 'changed' owners on numerous occasions since it's introduction, had has been repainted to suit. The last reorganisation of the company, now Bluescope, saw all it's locomotives sold to Pacific National, except for D34. It is currently stored at Steelhaven pending a decision on it's future. |
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