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
LMS diesel shunters LMS diesel shunters The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) pioneered the use of diesel shunting locomotives in Great Britain. The variety of experimental and production diesel shunters produced by the LMS is summarised below. In each heading, the first number(s) carried are shown first, with subsequent renumbering(s) following the "/". The initial experimental diesel shunter retained the number of the steam locomotive that it was nominally rebuilt from. However, when the LMS decided to procure a further nine prototype locomotives from a variety of manufacturers, it allocated the number series 7400–7408 to them. It was soon realised that this