Australian National AN class
class of 11 Australian diesel-electric locomotives
The AN class is a class of diesel locomotives built by Clyde Engineering, Somerton for Australian National in 1992–1993.
History
In the early 1990s, Australian National was pursuing with their fleet modernisation program to replace its first-generation diesel locomotives, of which many had recorded over six million kilometres in distance. AN placed an order in 1991 to Clyde Engineering for 11 locomotives, fitted with Electro-Motive Division's 16-710G3A prime mover. Dubbed the AN class, they were essentially a more powerful version of the previous DL class, while the body design features a raked cab, similar to the EL class.: p. 28
Built at Clyde's Somerton plant and delivered via New South Wales from October 1992 to March 1994, they entered service on Australian National's standard gauge network from Broken Hill to Adelaide, Alice Springs and Perth. In 1995, all were leased to National Rail with the transfer of Australian National's interstate operations.: p. 28
They also saw service on The Ghan from Darwin to Adelaide, using their 150 km/h top speed to their advantage. Until around late 2013, AN3 was regularly used for the service, wearing The Ghan's red and silver livery between July 2004 and 2014.: pp. 29, 33, 36
These locos are limited to 130 km/h when trailing behind an NR class locomotive, which the AN class work with.
In January 1996, AN10 was destroyed in the Hines Hill train collision, with its remains being cut up at Port Augusta in late 1997.
The public source identifies “Australian National AN class” as class of 11 Australian diesel-electric locomotives. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Australian, National and class.
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This entry incorporates text from “Australian National AN class” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.