New Zealand Railway Motive Power 2002          

By David Parsons (NZRLS)

64 pages, A4 portrait format (297 x 210 mm), card covers.  $35.

The author has taken as his starting point the nine editions of NZR Locomotives and Railcars by Tom McGavin published between 1960 and 1990, and made some changes.  Chapter One, "Historical Background", gives a short survey of the NZR diesel and electric fleet since 1950, bringing the reader up to the point of the ninth edition. Chapter Two covers the changes since 1990 in greater detail, and in between these two chapters is a complete list of non-steam locomotives, EMUs and DMUs that have worked for Tranz Rail or its predecessors.

Innovations include chapters recording the small fleet of self-propelled track maintenance vehicles used by Tranz Rail, and a selection of diverse locomotives owned and operated by independent industries at various sites around the country.  These chapters incorporate summary lists of the stock covered and appropriate data. The book concludes with a list of the fleet of Tranz Rail diesel and electric locomotives and railcars as at late 2001 including details such as allocation and livery. 

The book has a generous number of photographs, some 120, of which 52 are full colour.