Streamliners Australia rally to save unique Goulburn loco

Now efforts are under way to save a unique locomotive, CLP10, built by Clyde Engineering in 1972.

Bernie Baker, chairman of not-for-profit organisation, Streamliners Australia, said the loco was at risk of being shipped to Mozambique and used for scrap if there was no intervention.

His organisation, which aims to restore Australian 1950s bulldog-style heritage locomotives, wants to raise an estimated $160,000 to buy the loco from an African businessmen. Online fundraising has so far collected $45,000.

“We’re passionate about it. It’s just taking up space in Goulburn so we’ll take it elsewhere, most likely our shed at Parkes, and get it back to service,” Mr Baker said.

“CLP10 was not only the last streamliner built with the iconic bullnose design in Australia, but the last locomotive built like it in anywhere in the world. The locomotive was built eight years after EMD constructed the last American example for the Union Pacific Railroad and it is up to the rail heritage community to come together and save this piece of history.”

The organisation to restore the loco for use on heritage rail tours in Australia. It is also contemplating taking it to the USA to meet FT103, the oldest EMD Streamliner in the world.

The design was introduced in 1939 by EMD in the USA and adopted in Australia during the 1950s with the characteristics carrying through to CLP10 in the early 1970s.

The loco was formerly owned by Aurizon, which sold it the African entity some five years ago, after dubbing it “surplus to requirements.”

Mr Baker says now it is “going to rack and ruin.”

“We have less than two weeks to raise some significant capital to save CLP10 or we can wave this locomotive goodbye for good,” Mr Baker said.

Donations can be made to https://gogetfunding.com/save-clp17-formally-cl17-last-emd-streamliner-built-in-the-world/

Streamliners also conducted a three-day event in Goulburn in 2016, raising money for children’s charity, the Starlight Foundation.