NEW ZEALAND: The first of 20 diesel locomotives which China Northern is supplying to KiwiRail will be delivered during October, Yang Xiongjing, Project Manager at China CNR Corp confirmed to Railway Gazette International at InnoTrans on September 22.

The contract signed on September 11 2009 marked the first time a Chinese supplier had won an order to supply locomotives to an operator in a western country.

The locomotives are being built at CNR's Dalian plant, and will have 20V 4000 R43 engines of 2 700 kW produced in Germany by MTU.