RAILWAYS
Built in 1968/1969 by Mitsubishi in Japan for New Zealand Railways, the 64 members of this class was the predominant class for the South Island for the next 21 years. When I became interested in Railways, it was the twilight of steam in New Zealand, and the DJ had just come onto the scene. While I was too young to actually remember them when they were first introduced, it was the Southerner, the then crack express of the South Island main trunk between Christchurch and Invercargill, that caught my attention to the class. When the express was inaugurated in December 1970, four of the class were painted specially. Although an interesting colour of red was applied to the rest, they proved to be a reliable workhorse, visiting all the branch lines of the South Island. Eventually they were all to be repainted blue primarily for the Southerner, but it took at least fifteen years before the last paint was completed. I found my first experience behind a Dj, riding to Dunedin, from Port Chalmers, a satellite suburb, eight miles away. I had just finished visiting my grandparents, and was on the way home, when I boarded the train. I went right to the front carriage, and sat down, so I could hear the Caterpillar V12 engine rev up. As I sat down, I took notice of the number of both the engine, and the carriage. Dj 1246 was the hauling engine, and the carriage was A 1720. Although the train stopped at all the stations along the route, I enjoyed the travelling in between. I was able to watch the cars driving along the road from the vantage point that is the carriage of the train. Eventually the train stopped at Dunedin, and reluctantly I had to alight, to avoid myself taken for a ride to Mosgiel, another satellite suburb, served by the railways. Around 1990 the class began to disappear, as more modern motive power entered the scene. There are still some of the class in service by the time of writing, one operated by the railways (now known as Trans Rail), and five others operated by Taieri Gorge Railway. The Dj has gone down in history as one of the classes of locomotives that primarily served the South Island well.
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