Clyde/GM 2100 Class

The 2100 class is the first of a family of Clyde-built 16-cylinder locomotives ordered for the Central Queensland coal lines. As each new coal mine was planned, a new batch was ordered: the 2100 class for Goonyella and Peak Downs, the 2130 class for Saraji, the 2150 class for Norwich Park and the 2170 class for German Creek, Oaky Creek and Blair Athol, while the 2141 class (initially the 2200 class) was built for the Greenvale nickel mine. They were the only locos in Queensland fitted with 16-cylinder EMD 645E engines.

The 2100 class itself was introduced in December 1970, twenty-four of them numbered 2100 to 2123, built to haul coal on the Goonyella line. The first ten were financed by the developers of the Goonyella Riverside mine, two were bought by Queensland Railways and twelve were bought for the Peak Downs mine, and until the mine opened in 1971 the early deliveries worked freight and even suburban services around Brisbane. The family was the mainstay of QR's coal haulage from the opening of the Bowen Basin lines through to electrification, after which they moved to general freight and the remaining non-electrified coal lines, and became based all around the state.

From the late 1980s many were modified, the suffix letters on their numbers showing what had been done: A for a lightened locomotive with a smaller fuel tank, D for the driver-only operation cab with its lowered nose and larger windscreen, and F for the addition of auxiliary fuel tanks.

With the class's age and the arrival of the 2800 and 4000 classes, the 2100s were displaced and withdrawn. Ten were sold to Ferrocarril de Antofagasta a Bolivia in Chile in September 2001. Others were overhauled by Downer at Port Pirie and transferred to the Australian Railroad Group in Western Australia as the DD class; 2105D was the first, emerging as DD2356 in October 2007.

References

'Queensland Railways 2100 class', Wikipedia (accessed October 2026)
'Queensland Railways 2170 class', Wikipedia (accessed October 2026)