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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.
The locomotive, with its dynamometer car in tow, pictured on a siding in the Gisborne railway yards. The driver is Mr Bob Hepburn, Gisborne.
Technicians sitting at their instruments in the dynamometer car are Mr R. Collins, Lower Hutt, and Mr K. Hodgkinson, Petone.
The locomotive's controls are relatively simple in comparison to those of a steam engine's