NS 160

NS 160
NS 160
	by Supersnel11 & Exlysian
Price	Free
Statistics
Type	Shunter
Top Speed	29 km/h
Weight	21 tons
Capacity	320 tons
Length	7,2 meters

The NS 160 was a series of five British-built Dutch B (0-4-0) diesel shunters. It is the starter shunting locomotive.

Liveries

The NS 160 is available in Nederlandsche Spoorwegen green and War Department black. The latter is only available through the War Department gamepass.

Historical details

The UK years

Just before the outbreak of WWII, the Great Britain created the Ministry of Supply, which included the Directorate of Transport and Materials. The DTM was led by a head engineer of the London, Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS). The MoS requested a large amount of locomotives to aid in the war. These were designed to be cheaper and faster to be produce.

Andrew Barclay & Sons of Kilmarnock designed a four-wheeled diesel shunter which they built together with Drewry Cars. The first order of 19 shunters was delivered in 1941 and 1942. A second order of 19 followed in 1943, although three of these were cancelled. The 35 were used around shunting yards, harbours and munition depots with the numbers 2220-2231 & 2235. After the invasion of Normandy in 1944, they were used to transport goods and military parts.

They were shipped once special rails were laid on the beaches in France to load them from the transport ships. By now, they were all given War Department numbers. The first arrived in Europe in early July of 1944. From August onwards, they would be delivered to the harbour of Cherbourg.

The Dutch years

Through England, France, Belgium and Germany, some of the shunters ended up in the Dutch depot Nijmegen. The WD 70033 & 70046 did work from this depot, whilst two others, WD 70047 & 70048, were stored there. The '46 was moved to the depot Boxmeer in March, 1945 for shunting work there. However, the small shunter lacked sufficient pulling power and was replaced by the USATC S100 locomotive 7976 and became a reserve after the steam locomotive arrived.

In April of 1945, the WD 70030/40/41 and 70045 were stored at Nijmegen depot. NS notified the War Department that they were interested in purchasing these four locomotives in November. Because of the severe rolling stock shortage, they remained in the Netherlands until the middle of November, when the four were rented to NS. A fifth, WD 70033, was added to the group later. They were mainly used on tramways in the province Friesland. NS bought all five in 1947 for ƒ134.000. It was here that they were renumbered to NS 161-165, becoming the only NS series not based on a 100 or 150 number.

The first two were withdrawn in 1949 (NS 163) and 1951 (NS 161). The other three continued working on the tramline until 1957, with one getting maintenance whilst the other two worked. If more than one required repairs, an NS 200 would serve as back-up, like when NS 165 derailed on March 1st, 1955 and managed to end up perpendicular to the rails, blocking the track.

The locomotives would be withdrawn in 1957 to be replaced by locomotives from the NS 450 series. NS 162 & 164 were sold to the Dutch coal mine Willem-Sophia, where they were used until 1970 as D2 and D3. The two were eventually purchased by a scrapyard, which sold the 162 to a contracting company, from where it ended up working at a waste dump. After a defect rendered it nonoperational, 162 returned to the contracting company which kept it around until their bankruptcy in 1996. The 164 was scrapped in 1971. NS 165 was sold to a warehouse company which put it to work in Pernis as 801 until March, 1961. A year later she was brought to a scrapyard by road.

Preservation

In 1996, the ex-NS 162 was purchased by the STIBANS foundation. Earlier attempts at purchasing the locomotive had failed, so the bankruptcy had worked in STIBANS' favour. The foundation worked on NS 162 for years to make it operational again, even purchasing two others of the type from the UK (WD 70031 & '34) to cannibalise for parts.

NS 162 in NS green in 2017.

After STIBANS was dissolved in 2009, ex-NS 162 was given to the 162 Foundation, which previously was a part of STIBANS. The locomotive was moved to their own workshop and then to the Dutch heritage railway Stoomtram Hoorn-Medemblik (SHM) in 2012. The SHM assisted with getting the locomotive operational and hosted her first test run. The last test drive was in 2014 after much work, more test runs and a short period of being displayed at the Dutch railway museum, all in WD black. It was painted in its old NS green livery in 2015.

In 2017, it would do a test run to the SHM station Wognum. This would be the last activity it would see at the SHM before moving to a different heritage railway, Museum Buurtspoorweg (MBS), where it would break down at the end of the year. It was moved to yet another heritage railway, which would join forces with the MBS to repair the locomotive. It was loaned to the MBS, though some discrepancies between the MBS and 162 Foundation resulted in the locomotive being moved to the Dutch Transport Museum in 2021.

Its current whereabouts are unknown because the Transport Museum had to move out of their building in 2023. Ex-NS 162 will be on display in their new location.

Technical details

The NS 160 were equipped with: a Bosch-fuel pump; accumulator batteries ( 24V); air whistle; manual sanders; a screw brake; an air brake for the locomotive only and a 6-cylinder four-stroke Barclay/Gardner 6L3 engine (142 hp at 1.200 RPM).

The locomotives were 7,17 metres long and weighed 210 ton. They had a maximum speed of 28 km/h that could be reached with a hydraulic clutch with four gears. They could hold 450 litres of fuel.

The small wheelbase of 1905 mm allowed them access to curves with a radius of 30 metres. The War Department claimed this was as low as 18 metres. The wheels had a diameter of 99 cm.

NS - WD Numbers


NS	WD
161	70029
162	70033
163	70040
164	70041
165	70045

Trivia

The NS 160 is the starter shunter, which is fit for shunting trains for low level players.
The NS 160 is the only diesel locomotive which is driven by an external crank, with connection and coupling rods, similar to a steam locomotive.
Despite being the free shunting locomotive, the NS 1 and NS 100 are both weaker, and obviously more expensive than the NS 160.
The NS 160 has been available since the game's launch, version 0.1, in both liveries.