Diesel locomotive Therefore, diesel traction became economical for shunting before it became economical for hauling trains. The construction of diesel shunters began in 1920 in France, in 1925 in Denmark, in 1926 in the Netherlands, and in 1927 in Germany. After few years of testing, hundreds of units were produced within a decade. Diesel-powered or "oil-engined" railcars, generally diesel–mechanical, were developed by various European manufacturers in the 1930s, e.g. by William Beardmore and Company for the Canadian National Railways (the Beardmore Tornado engine was subsequently used in the R101 airship). Some of those series for regional traffic were begun with gasoline motors
Diesel locomotive 1953. One of the first home developed diesel vehicles of China was the DMU Dongfeng (东风), produced in 1958 by CSR Sifang. Series production of China's first diesel locomotive class, the DFH 1, began in 1964 following construction of a prototype in 1959. The Trans-Australian Railway built 1912 to 1917 by Commonwealth Railways (CR) passes through 2000 km of waterless (or salt watered) desert terrain unsuitable for steam locomotives. The original engineer Henry Deane envisaged diesel operation to overcome such problems. Some have suggested that the CR worked with the South Australian Railways to trial diesel traction. However, the technology