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WestRail Orange DX (Revised)

(This is an upgrade that has been delayed for far too long. The original WestRail DX has a lot of detail inaccuracies, such as the blue stripe not lining up properly. This new version corrects most (if not, all) of the problems the original had).

The original version of this reskin has appeared in at least one Frantic video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQgWdaSr2oM&list=LLoaOleXAzvE_jt0XulHBnpA

The Western Australian Government Railways introduced their new trading name - WestRail - on September the 12th, 1975. Despite this, the company's official name remained as WAGR. They operated passenger and freight trains throughout Western Australia, including the commuter services in Perth (these were electrified in 1993). In 1987, the then-current WA Premier (Brian Burke) announced the possibility of a merger with WestRail and Australian National. This never went anywhere.

As well as running the trains, WestRail was also responsible for maintaining the railway infrastructure. This includes track, signals, stations and bridges.

WestRail continued as the state-owned operation that it was until the 17th of December, 2000 when the company's freight division (along with the WestRail name and logo) were sold to the Australia Western Railroad, a subsidiary of the ARG. This stands for Alternate Reality Game, oops....um, I mean Australian Railroad Group. The deal also saw WestRail's freight lines leased to ARG for 99 years (i.e. - until 2099).

The WAGR's remaining functions (which included owning the rail network and operating passenger services) were transferred to the Western Australian Government Railways Commission. On New Year's Day 2003, the WAGRC's functions were absorbed by the Public Transport Authority.

The original WestRail livery was the one represented by this reskin. It's a simple orange with prominent blue stripe on the side of the locomotive, which loops in a V-shape at both ends. As always, this reskin carries the number of a real-life DX.

DX 5074 was built by General Electric in 1972, entering service in November of that year. The engine was originally numbered as DX 2606, as she was built in the days before the introduction of the Traffic Monitoring System. This was rolled out in 1978, when the locomotive was renumbered as DX 5074. As with the other 48 DX's, 2606/5074 was first outshopped in the Clockwork Orange livery. Unfortunately I couldn't find any pictures of DX 2606 in her original condition.

Sometime in the early 1980's, 5074 was repainted in the classic International Orange livery. This was followed in around 1989 by the replacement of her small two-piece windscreen with a large single pane. The introduction of single-man crewing was the reason for this modification, and it was intended to improve the driver's visibility. Personally I prefer the aesthetics of the large one-piece windscreen.

As with a sizeable number of DX's, 5074 has spent most of her life working in the North Island. Photographs from 1992 and 1995 show the locomotive pulling the southbound Overlander out of Auckland. She was repainted into the New Zealand Rail blue livery in June 1995. NZ Rail blue was a short-lived livery that lasted from 1993 to 1995, and not many engines received the livery.

5074 had the NZ Rail logo replaced by that of Tranz Rail sometime in 1997, not long after the TR company launched. Tranz Rail was the 2nd of two companies that ran the New Zealand rail network in the country's 13 year long experiment with privatisation. During this time, the engine continued running in the North Island.

Sadly the locomotive was unlucky enough to receive the Toll Rail livery in February 2008. Toll Rail launched in 2003, and didn't even last six years. 5074 was only in the true Toll Rail livery for 4 months, as the railway was bought back by the NZ Government in July 2008. After this, 5074 had her TR logos replaced by KiwiRail stickers. It wasn't until March 2010 when the locomotive was finally repainted in the KiwiRail livery.

Today 5074 is now in the South Island, having been transferred there in late 2019. She was the 2nd to last DX to go south. On a personal note, I was able to chase 5074 (and an unwelcome DL 9325) down the North Island Main Trunk in July 2019. The places we stopped at to film the train passing by were Raurimu, National Park station, the Makatote Viaduct and the northern outskirts of Taihape.