The Presentation ‘Clyde GM 81 Class Pt1 - The Early Years’ covered the mechanical details, the cab and engine compartment layouts and the early years of 81 Class operation between their manufacture in ‘candy’ livery for the State Rail Authority (SRA) back in 1982 by Clyde Engineering at Kelso NSW up until the early 2000’s under the subsequent control FreightCorp.
This presentation, ‘Clyde GM 81 Class Pt2 - The Later Years’, details operation of these 81 Class after the merger of Freight Corp and National Rail (NR) to form Pacific National (PacNat), and covers the period 2006 through 2018. During this period 81 Class essentially became progressively displaced from most coal, interstate intermodal, steel and aggregate (stone) operations by more modern 82, 90, 92, 93, NR, and TT Class locomotives. They have up to date held onto or at least retained the larger share of most grain, limestone, cement, track ballasting, local intermodal and heavy shunting work.
Locomotive 8147 is the only member of this 84 strong class to be withdrawn from service after it and two 48 Class were severely damaged after a fire following a level crossing accident at Back Creek.
Approximate run time: 157 minutes.