Clyde Engineering


Clyde Engineering was an Australian manufacturer of locomotives, rolling stock, and other industrial products.
It was founded in September 1898 by a syndicate of Sydney businessmen buying the Granville, [New South Wales|Granville] factory of timber merchants Hudson Brothers. The company won contracts for railway rolling stock, a sewerage system, trams and agricultural machinery. In 1907 it won its first contract for steam locomotives for the New [South Wales Government Railways]. By 1923 it had 2,200 employees. After contracting during the depression it became a major supplier of munitions during World War II.
In 1950 it was awarded the first of many contracts for diesel locomotives by the Commonwealth Railways after it was appointed the Australian licensee for Electro-Motive Diesel products. Apart from building locomotives and rolling stock, Clyde Engineering diversified into telephone and industrial electronic equipment, machine tools, domestic aluminium ware, road making and earth making equipment, hydraulic pumps, product finishing equipment, filtration systems, boilers, power stations and firing equipment, car batteries, hoists and cranes, door and curtain tracks and motor vehicle distribution.
In July 1996 it was taken over by Evans Deakin Industries. In March 2001 Evans Deakin was taken over by Downer Group to form Downer EDi.

Products

Amongst the classes of locomotives built by Clyde Engineering were:

Steam locomotives

Commonwealth Railways

New South Wales

South Australia

Tasmania

Diesel locomotives

Commonwealth Railways / Australian National

New South Wales

Victoria

Queensland

Western Australia

Mining

New Zealand

  • DA class NO's 1430–1439, Phase II variant of the class. Featured longer-than-standard chassis to accommodate a larger fuel tank than the earlier Phase I variant.
  • DBR class rebuilt from Canadian-built DB class in 1980–1982.
  • DC class rebuilt from Canadian-built Phase III DA class locomotives from 1978 to 1981.

Electric locomotives

Queensland

Diesel railcars

South Australia

Electric multiple units

New South Wales

Electric tramcars

New South Wales

Other non-rail related products

  • Lawnmowers and lead batteries - 1930s
  • Servicing aircraft, naval vessels
  • Mining equipment
  • Automobile parts and accessories
  • Bulldozers
  • Bus bodies
  • Cranes
  • Structural steel
  • Air cargo
  • Lorries
  • Filtration Systems
  • Roller Doors
  • Materials Handling Equipment
  • Automobile Assembly Paint Lines

Manufacturing Facilities

Non rail products

Because of capacity constraints, in the 1990s Clyde leased Australian National Industries' Braemar factory to fulfill its order for FreightCorp 82 class locomotives.