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
Rigid-framed electric locomotive reluctant single prototype, built for comparison with the articulated 2′B+B1′ , which had themselves been a reaction to the poor performance of the 1912 1′D1′ . A rare example of the 2′D2′ layout was the unique British diesel-mechanical of 1955. Rigid-framed electric locomotive Rigid-framed electric locomotives were some of the first generations of design. When these began the s of these early locomotives, particularly with AC motors, were too large and heavy to be mounted directly to the axles and so were carried on the frame. One of the initial simplest wheel arrangements for a mainline electric locomotive, from around