Clyde Engineering

Men at work in the aircraft workshop at Clyde Engineering

The senior staff of Clyde Engineering in a historic photo

3830 at the Hunter Valley Steamfest in April 2008

V/Line A class locomotive at Flinders Street station in August 2006

Queensland Rail 2470 class locomotive at Corinda in February 1998

Pacific National DL class locomotive at Two Wells in December 2007

Australian Railroad Group L class locomotive at Forrestfield in December 2012

State Transport Authority 3000 class railcar at Goodwood station in May 2005

Clyde Engineering was an Australian manufacturer of locomotives, rolling stock, and other industrial products.

It was founded in September 1898 by a syndicate of Sydney businessmen buying the Granville factory of timber merchants Hudson Brothers. The company won contracts for railway rolling stock, a sewerage system, trams and agricultural machinery. In 1907 it won its first contract for steam locomotives for the New South Wales Government Railways. By 1923 it had 2,200 employees. After contracting during the depression it became a major supplier of munitions during World War II.^[1]

In 1950 it was awarded the first of many contracts for diesel locomotives by the Commonwealth Railways after it was appointed the Australian licensee for Electro-Motive Diesel products.^[2] Apart from building locomotives and rolling stock, Clyde Engineering diversified into telephone and industrial electronic equipment, machine tools, domestic aluminium ware, road making and earth making equipment, hydraulic pumps, product finishing equipment, filtration systems, boilers, power stations and firing equipment, car batteries, hoists and cranes, door and curtain tracks and motor vehicle distribution.^[1]

In July 1996 it was taken over by Evans Deakin Industries.^[3][4][5] In March 2001 Evans Deakin was taken over by Downer Group to form Downer EDi.^[6][7]

Products

Amongst the classes of locomotives built by Clyde Engineering were:

Steam locomotives

Commonwealth Railways

• 4 G class Granville
• 10 L class Granville
• 8 K class

New South Wales

• 10 C30T class rebuilt from C30 class Granville
• 45 C32 class Granville
• 65 C36 class Granville
• 5 C38 class Granville
• 30 D50 class Granville
• 160 D53 class Granville
• 120 D55 class Granville
• 25 D57 class Granville

South Australia

• 10 740 class Granville

Tasmania

• 20 Q class Granville

Diesel locomotives

Commonwealth Railways / Australian National

• 47 GM class Granville
• 17 CL class Granville
• 6 NJ class Granville
• 8 AL class Rosewater
• 10 BL class Rosewater
• 15 DL class Kelso
• 11 AN class Somerton

New South Wales

• 6 42 class Granville
• 10 421 class Granville
• 20 422 class Granville
• 18 49 class Granville
• 84 81 class Kelso
• 58 82 class Braemar

Victoria

• 26 B class Granville
• 17 S class Granville
• 94 T class Granville
• 75 Y class Granville
• 24 X class Granville / Rosewater
• 10 C class Rosewater
• 33 G class Rosewater / Somerton
• 11 A class (rebuilt from B class) Rosewater
• 13 P class (rebuilt from T class) Somerton
• 25 N class Somerton
• 5 H class (Modified T class) Granville

Queensland

• 13 1400 class Granville
• 10 1450 class Granville
• 42 1460 class Granville
• 29 1502 class Granville
• 27 1550 class Eagle Farm
• 12 1700 class Eagle Farm
• 56 1720 class Eagle Farm
• 27 2100 class Eagle Farm
• 11 2130 class Eagle Farm
• 8 2141 class Eagle Farm
• 14 2150 class Eagle Farm
• 45 2170 class Eagle Farm
• 24 2400 class Eagle Farm
• 18 2450 class Eagle Farm
• 38 2470 class Eagle Farm

Western Australia

• 25 A class Granville
• 5 J class Granville
• 27 L class Granville / Eagle Farm
• 13 DB class Rosewater
• 19 Q class Forrestfield
• 11 S class Forrestfield

Mining

• 9 BHP Whyalla DE class Granville
• 5 Hamersley Iron EMD DS50 class Rosewater
• 1 Goldsworthy Mining Company GML10 Kelso

New Zealand

• D^A class N^O's 1430-1439, Phase II variant of the class. Featured longer-than-standard chassis to accommodate a larger fuel tank than the earlier Phase I (1955) variant.
• DBR class rebuilt from Canadian-built D^B class in 1980-82.
• D^C class rebuilt from Canadian-built Phase III D^A class locomotives from 1978 to 1981.

Electric locomotives

Queensland

• 22 3300/3400 class Kelso / Somerton

Diesel railcars

South Australia

• 50 3000 class railcars Somerton

Electric multiple units

New South Wales

• 205 Suburban single deck carriages

Other non rail related products

• Lawnmowers and lead batteries - 1930s
• Servicing aircraft, naval vessels
• Mining equipment
• Automobile parts and accessories
• Bulldozers
• Bus bodies
• Cranes
• Structural steel (e.g. trusses for the Peats Ferry Bridge^[8]
• Air cargo
• Lorries

Manufacturing Facilities

• Granville closed 1973^[9]:275
• Kelso opened early 1970s,^[10]:370 closed before 2014^[11]
• Somerton
• Eagle Farm closed 1995^[12]
• Rosewater opened 1974, closed April 1986
• Forrestfield established in 1997 to assemble the Westrail Q and S classes, closed 1998

Because of capacity constraints, in the 1990s Clyde leased Australian National Industries' Braemar factory to fulfill its order for FreightCorp 82 class locomotives.^[13]

References

Further reading

• Murray, James (1992). Phoenix to the world: the story of Clyde Industries and Sir Raymond Purves. Sydney. ISBN 0 949853 47 X. 
• A History of Clyde Engineering

External links

Media related to Clyde Engineering Collection at Wikimedia Commons