I was talking to one of many people about three years ago, in my compiling information about the sad demise of Australian National and I was interested to hear that the person concerned had been a fitter at Islington at the time that 900 was issued to service in September 1951.
Actually he let me into a little known secret that "Lady Norrie" was never, during the course of its entire life, "completed"... at least it was never quite the same as the rest of the 900 class.
Another little known fact is that all the interior pipework was colour-coded - standard in ships at that time, but building locomotives was something quite new in Australian history. The standard after 900, was all locomotives from all Australian sources, had their engine-rooms uniformly painted in battleship grey :)
The South Australian Railways' Islington Workshops had built diesel-electric locomotives before, but never a main-liner. No main-line locomotives had been built in Australia, nor indeed imported from overseas. This was a new page in history.
Four US-built General Electric 44-ton Bo-Bo "switcher" locomotives had been shipped to Australia for munitions shunting duties at Sydney late in World War II, and two eventually found their way to the Commonwealth Railways system in 1948 where they were classified DE-class and based at Port Augusta. They were put to use after the war with construction of the Woomera rocketry establishment and shunted there for a while. That was really the nearest thing to a diesel main-Line locomotive there was.
At a later date, we hope to quote from Peter Bermingham's excellent history on the introduction of diesel-electric main-line locomotives into Australia, found in his books The ML2 Story and The A7 Era.
If you are wondering about the background image on this page, it is from a photograph taken by Steve McNicol (Railmac Publications, Elizabeth, South Australia) of the SAR Islington-built 905 standing on dual gauge track possibly at Peterborough or Port Pirie, because the dual gauge trackwork did not reach to Mile End until AN days - and the yellow and black "piping shrike" State badge had long since gone from the noses of all ex-SAR locomotives under the edict of their new owners. The photo is published here with the permission of owner.
905 unfortunately went to the wreckers during the late 1980s.
The background image is 800 pixels wide. If your browser window is wider than that (if you see the image repeating to the right), the page will look better if you resize it to avoid the 2nd image.
There are seperate pages here where we examine the two seperate contenders for being Australia's first Main-Line Diesel-Electric locomotive. Some of the pages will also include information from the well written book by Robert Sampson and Ronald Fluck called "Locomotives of Australian National" published by the then Mile End Railway Museum.
Indeed, Robert Sampson's words are well written in the perspective of 1982...
Things now are different. So different, that we may need to write a page to explain why there is neither Australian railway company, nor locomotive builder, currently in existence, who can possibly have any legitimate interest in this thing that happened fifty years ago.
The manufacturer of GM1, while the company (Clyde Engineering) exists under another name (E.D.I. Rail) - albeit with two intervening changes of ownership and management, and little continuity of staff since its several reorganisations during the intervening period - is hardly able to participate in birthday celebrations of another company's product.
Similarly, the builder of 900 no longer exists at all.
True, the locomotive erecting shop at Islington still exists, and indeed I photographed the three locomotive rebuilds performed in it by Victorian private railway company Great Northern a few years ago. They have now established their own workshops at Bendigo since the privatisation of the Victorian Railways. Great Northern Rail Services head office is in Melbourne.
The owner of 900 (who was also its builder) sold his interest in the engine to the owner of GM1 at the time that the Australian National Railways Commission was formed 25 years ago. Five years later they restructured, changed their name, their management, and much of their operations. In 1995 the owners of that railway company gave the profitable business to a new company they started and over two and a half years wound up their operations, selling all their assets and retrenching all their staff.
So who would be around then that still owns the history-making locomotives?
Alas, nobody.
But there is good news!
The overseas company who bought the wreckage - and which has systematically rebuilt business from scratch - has been public spirited enough to offer the use of GM1 in a number of Australia-wide celebrations. Those who vocally criticise the privatisation process often ignore the need to actually make money in order to develop business to keep the income rolling in, which in turn pays the wages.
A personal opinion is that had Australian National not been destroyed by the bureaucrats, there may very well have been celebrations. But that is pure speculation, and "What if?" doesn't go very far when faced with the rationale of day-to-day living.
So, you see, there is nobody around (in a corporate sense) NOW who was involved THEN- it just remains for enthusiasts like the webmaster of this website, like the Port Dock Station Rail Museum, and like the other enthusiast societies to remember, and tell those who never knew!
In fact, there are few people in the general public who are as enthusiastic about railways as there used to be.
Having cast a mantle of gloom over things, let us look with hope at the future. There is hope!
There is indeed light at the end of the tunnel - even if as the US railfan magazine ads say, it is likely that the light is powered by Caterpillar!
Please take your pick here, and select which locomotive you wish to read about. Afterwards, please come back here using the Back button on your browser to select the other one. This part of the site is incomplete, so you may like to bookmark the page and return :)