NZR Wf class
The NZR WF class were steam locomotives designed, built and used by New Zealand Railways Department. Their wheel arrangement is described by the Whyte notation 2-6-4T and the first members of the class entered service in 1904. The locomotives were tank engines designed by the Railways Department's Chief Mechanical Engineer A. L. Beattie, and were mainly built for suburban duties such as those between Christchurch and Lyttelton. They also saw main-line service in the Taranaki region, but most of the class members were assigned to branch line and local services throughout the country. Two were experimentally converted to oil burners in 1909-1910. The tests were satisfactory, but as coal was much cheaper than oil at the time, no further conversions took place.
Eight of the locomotives were sold to the Tasmanian Government Railways between 1939 and 1944 and classified as the DS class.
