National Rail Corporation

National Rail liveried locomotives NR52 and AN2 in Melbourne, Victoria

8112 in Full National Rail Livery sits in the dead end at Kewdale, Western Australia as a replacement shunter for a period of time during 2009

The National Rail Corporation was a rail operator in Australia. The Australian Government, New South Wales and Victoria established the National Rail Corporation (NR) in 1992. The great majority of its shares were Federally owned, reflecting the fact that the lion's share of assets transferred to it consisted of the interstate rail freight operations of the Australian National Railways Commission (AN). National Rail commenced operations over the interstate network to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Alice Springs. In 2001, NR's freight operations and rolling stock were combined with the New South Wales Government-owned FreightCorp and sold to Toll Holdings and Patrick Corporation and were subsequently operated under the name of Pacific National. The company today trades under the ownership and name of Asciano Ltd.

Fleet

Upon commencing operations in April 1993 the National Rail Corporation inherited a diverse collection of rolling stock to operate interstate freight operations in Australia.^[1] The fleet included locomotives of mixed age and power provided by Public Transport Corporation of Victoria, the State Rail Authority of New South Wales, and the Australian National Railways Commission. It was decided to order a fleet of modern locomotives to replace them (the NR class) with United Goninan obtaining the contract for 120 locomotives. The first unit commenced trials on 23 September 1996 and through the use of two factories the entire fleet was delivered by October 1997.^[2]

With the arrival of the class National Rail was able to return leased units to their owners, including FreightCorp 422, 80, 81, and 82 class units; Silverton Tramway Company 442 class; and V/Line C class units. The relatively new EL class were also removed from the National Rail roster in November 1997.^[2] Once all 120 units were delivered, the National Rail fleet still included AN, BL and DL class units, along with thirteen 81 class and several hired G class. The new NR class locomotives were placed on time sensitive trains first.^[2]

References

1. ^ "Background - Organisation of Australia's Railways". www.infrastructure.gov.au. http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/rail/trains/background/index.aspx. Retrieved 2008-11-10. 
2. ^ ^{a b c} Antony Fitzgerald (April 2000). "The Dash 9 in Australia: National Rail's NR class". Australian Model Railway Magazine: page 27.