New Zealand Railways: No. 1 in Freight

Описание: In the 1970s and 80s, New Zealand Railways was undergoing a significant period of transition, as had many railroads during that era. The UK had seen the Beeching era, the United States had seen various mergers and acquisitions as well as a reshuffling of passenger services to Amtrak, and the events leading up to the creation of Conrail.

Just as with the rest of the world, passenger service was being threatened by the personal motor car. In New Zealand, freight rail service had long been protected by regulations that limited the distances and routes that trucking operations could use, but many of those were being progressively changed or lifted. Railways would have to compete for traffic for the first time.

That lead to some significant network changes: some lines were upgraded, some were downrated or closed. A massive PR campaign got underway to advertise to the country what Railways could do, and why they should be considered the best choice for the job.

This is one of those advertisements: a short documentary on NZR's freight carrying abilities. In it you'll see the NZR DJ Class built by Mitsubishi in Japan, the NZR DX Class built by General Electric (based on the U26C) in the United States, and the NZR DA Class built by GMD (or Clyde Engineering under license) in Canada (or Australia), among others. Amazingly the DAs (albeit rebuilt in the 1980s as DCs) and the DXs were still in regular use when I was last in NZ a couple of years ago - though the DCs are very much being phased out and the DXs are likely not too far from the end also. A couple of members of the DJ class are still going in tourist/heritage train service.