#4046
Commonwealth Railways CL class
🇦🇺 Australia ·built by Clyde Engineering· from 1970· Australian diesel electric locomotive
2 photos from Wikimedia Commons · credits & licences
- 1. Arg-intermodal-lara-australia: Marcus Wong Wongm· CC BY-SA 4.0
- 2. Locomotive CLF2: Tomoyn· CC BY 4.0
what is it?
The CL class is a class of diesel locomotives built by Clyde Engineering, Granville for the Commonwealth Railways in several batches between 1970 and 1972. The class was the last in the world to be built with the Electro-Motive Diesel bulldog nose but differed from previous builds in having a mansard roof.
who runs it
base stats
Bars compare against all trains: 600 km/h (maglev), 1,700 seats; power, weight and number built on a log scale up to 20 MW, 1,000 t and 20,000 built.
fun facts
- First built 56 years ago, in 1970.
- Top speed is 1.1× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
- 2.5 MW is about 29 family cars (~85 kW each) flat out.
- Weighs about as much as 22 African elephants (~6 t each).
- 19.6 m long: about 4 cars parked nose to tail.
- Still in service after 56 years.
diesel locomotive: A diesel engine on board drives the wheels, usually through a generator (diesel-electric).
spec sheet
- built
- 1970–1972
- in service from
- 1970
- status
- in service
- number built
- 17
- kind
- Diesel-electric
- traction
- diesel
- origin
- 🇦🇺 Australia
- builders
- Clyde Engineering
- operators
- Aurizon, Southern Shorthaul Railroad
- top speed
- 140 km/h
- power
- 2.5 MW
- gauge
- 1,435 mm standard gauge
- wheel arrangement
- Co-Co
- length
- 19.6 m
- weight
- 129 t
From the Wikipedia infobox and Wikidata. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: Wikidata Q5153837, Wikipedia: Commonwealth Railways CL class (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-25.