Locomotive D140 (24), Bernard Spragg Photo

Locomotive D140 was built by Scott Brothers in Christchurch in 1887. It bore their works number 36 and was one of ten D engines built between 1884 and 1887 by this early engineering company...The D Class locomotives were built to supplement twenty-two similar engines imported from Scotland. They are a small general purpose tank locomotive with a small leading wheel set and four coupled driving wheels, each thirty-six inches in diameter. The D Class weighs seventeen tons, is twenty-wo feet in length and is characterised by its distinctive and somewhat unusual inclined cylinders and running plates...Engines of this class were used extensively to haul trains between Christchurch and Lyttelton. They were all taken out of service and scrapped or disposed of by 1927 and replaced by newer and more powerful models..Locomotive D140 has a long association and played a part in the development of Canterbury, serving as part of the early New Zealand Railways locomotive fleet until it was taken out of service and sold in 1920..Overhauled and recommissioned in 2004, D140 is in regular use on operating days.