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The Gisborne Photo News

 

17

Diesel Locomotive Trial

As an experimental run to test its performance on the East Coast line, a "DA" class diesel-electric locomotive recently hauled a heavy freight train weighing 614 tons from Napier to Gisborne.

Between the locomotive and the train was a dynamometer car, which was manned by a team of technicians, and which housed a aeries of complex instruments which recorded the engine's rates of acceleration and performances on the varying grades.

This information will be studied by experts, and if it is satisfactory, diesel-electric locomotives will replace the present steam-engines in the not too distant future.

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The locomotive, with its dynamometer car in tow, pictured on a siding in the Gisborne railway yards. The driver is Mr Bob Hepburn, Gisborne.

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Technicians sitting at their instruments in the dynamometer car are Mr R. Collins, Lower Hutt, and Mr K. Hodgkinson, Petone.

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The locomotive's controls are relatively simple in comparison to those of a steam engine's