Queensland Railways DH class
class of 73 Australian diesel-hydraulic locomotives
The DH class is a class of diesel-hydraulic locomotives built by Walkers Limited, Maryborough for Queensland Railways between 1966 and 1974.
History
In 1966, Queensland Railways tested a Walkers Limited built diesel-hydraulic shunting locomotive. This was later purchased and by 1974, the 73 DH class locomotives had taken over shunting duties in most Queensland yards. They were also used on short-distance freight services. With the closure of many freight yards and the move to longer trains, withdrawals started in the 1980s. Many were sold for further use on Queensland sugar cane railways.
29 were rebuilt to 610 mm (2 ft) gauge for use at sugar mills around Queensland.
4 were rebuilt to 900 mm (2 ft 11+7⁄16 in) gauge for use on the Yallourn 900mm Railway in Victoria, and subsequently converted to 610 mm (2 ft) gauge for use at sugar mills in Queensland.
13 were exported to Vietnam and 2 to Malaysia as large diesel shunters for use on 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) gauge.
Preservation
DH2 is retained by the Queensland Rail Heritage division.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Queensland Railways DH class” as class of 73 Australian diesel-hydraulic locomotives. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as class of 73 Australian diesel-hydraulic locomotives. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7270990. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1966 and 1974.
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This entry incorporates text from “Queensland Railways DH 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.