Trackside

Who Is CFCLA?

Chicago Freight Car Leasing Australia (CFCLA for short) is a company established in 1997, as an Australian arm of Chicago Freight Car Leasing co. (an American company established in 1928 to lease rolling stock to operators – interestingly, they do not own any locomotives, just wagons). CFCLA is currently the main source of leased motive power and rolling stock in the country – they lease locomotives and/or rolling stock to major operators such as Pacific National, QRNational, Australian Railroad Group and Genesee and Wyoming Australia.

The most readily photographed aspect of CFCLA’s fleet is their motive power. They own a very diverse fleet, with locomotives ranging from high horsepower, heavy freight mainline locomotives, right through to lightly weighted branch line units. Interestingly, CFCLA combine a fleet of newly built locomotives with veteran units from ex government railway service, themselves rebuilt so that little more than the basic shape of the old locomotive remains.

The CFCLA Fleet

The CFCLA website divides their fleet up into three distinct groups:

High Horsepower locomotives are designed for mainline, long haul operators. The EL, GL, RL and VL Classes all fit into this category. These locomotives are either very modern, or (in the case of the GL Class) completely refurbished to meet modern needs.

Mainline locomotives are older, ex government locomotives, and include a number of ex NSWGR locomotives (442 Class, 422 Class and 44 Class locomotives all feature) as well as ex Victorian and South Australian locomotives. A number of these locomotives can be seen operating on trip trains and infrastructure trains around the state.

Branchline units are also all ex government service, with units from both NSW and Victoria, as well as ex WAGR locomotives. This classification even includes four locomotives from Hong Kong! These locomotives are also used for trip and infrastructure trains, but are also available for operators to use on rural branch lines, where a heavier locomotive might be prohibited from venturing.

CFCLA also has a very numerous and diverse fleet of rolling stock, including container flats, bulk hoppers, ore hoppers and infrastructure wagons. An innovation by CFCLA also sees the leasing of bulk containers, which can be transported exactly like normal shipping containers, yet can also operate as a hopper when used in conjunction with certain container flats. This provides CFCLA the freedom to lease the wagons out as container flats, and the containers as bulk containers, or leased as a combination when there is a shortage of bulk hoppers (such as during a bumper harvest of grain/wheat).

The CFCLA Colours

CFCLA are very popular with enthusiasts, mostly for their colour scheme. A very elegant corporate colour scheme of yellow, silver and dark blue is tailored to fit each class of locomotive and wagon in service, which has the effect of a uniform fleet of locomotives and wagons, despite all the many different shapes and sizes of the various types of rolling stock in use.

A number of CFCLA owned locomotives are on long-term lease to Southern Shorthaul Railroad, or were at some stage on a long-term lease. This has resulted in the locomotives so leased to be painted in Southern Shorthaul Railroads eye catching yellow and black scheme, such as GM’s 12, 22 and 27, as well as a number of members of the T, B and S classes.

In addition, B65 has been painted in a special “Auscision Models” livery, and is on lease to Southern Shorthaul Railroad for use on their infrastructure and works trains.

Australian Horsepower

The company line for CFCLA is “Australian Horsepower”, and this has been translated very literally into a naming scheme for a number of CFCLA owned locomotives. A large number of CFCLA’s locomotive fleet has been given the names of Australian Racehorses. For example, VL352 is named after three-time Melbourne Cup winner Makybe Diva (winning in 2003, 2004 and 2005). EL61 (pictured) is named Ethereal, for the 2001 Melbourne Cup winning horse of the same name.