This locomotives was built by Dübs and Company in Glasgow in 1896 as a Abt-rack locomotive for the Mt Lyell Mining & Railway Co. In all five locomotives were purchased by the railway. Four were supplied by Dübs between 1896 and 1901 and one by the North British Locomotive Company in 1938.
The railway built by the Mt Lyell Mining & Railway Company was one such venture to provide a rack railway connecting Queenstown to the docks at Strahan.
The route crossed difficult mountain country using the Abt-rack system and the line was nearly complete when the locomotive was delivered as a kit of parts which were assembled in the bush.
The locomotive on the Mt Lyell Mining & Railway Co spent their working lives hauling copper concentrates, mine supplies and general traffic. They were supported by conventional locomotives on the non-rack sections of the route. The five Abt locos were originally coal burners but were converted to oil firing late in their working lives.
The Mt Lyell Railway was closed in 1963 and subsequently dismantled.
This locomotive was donated to the TTM, Glenorchy after closure of their line in 1963.
It is normally displayed within the replica roundhouse at the Tasmanian Transport Museum at Glenorchy, Hobart. It is the only locomotives that remains as it last worked. The others have all been rebuilt to work again on what is now the West Coast Wilderness Railway or in the case of Abt No 4 buried in a quarry which has since filled with water.
- Dübs and Company Works number 3369 – Abt No 1
- Dübs and Company Works number 3730 – Abt No 3
- North British Locomotive Company Work number 24418 – Abt No5
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