Would just like to get opinions from my fellow rail fans who may not have heard of these, these locos are Chinese built and have been somewhat controversial here in NZ due to poor performance, however Kiwirail have recently ordered more and are staunchly defending them. Thoughts? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_DL_class_locomotive https://www.odt.co.nz/star-news/star-national/kiwirail-defends-troublesome-diesel-locomotives
I think a Chinese loco alone should not be the problem. The MTU engines too. I could imagine some NZ specific things are not recognized enough by the loco's.
Looks nice. It's a little out of DTG's current cycle. Note : I didnt expect someone from NZ to call themselves a Kiwi.
Co-incidentally I was reading an old copy of Motive Power last night, from July 2011, and they briefly mentioned KiwiRail buying 20 more of the DLs to add to the existing 20.... "aimed to replace older less reliable..." I believe there are specific requirements for NZ railways which influenced the purchase of the DLs - and budget too - but it sounds a bit like management are shifting the goalposts after the fact, in order to say what meets targets. Not that they're the first to counter criticism by re-defining what's acceptable!
