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4615 at Eveleigh on 14th December 2002 after SETS Airport Colliery Tour.
The "46 class" electric locomotives were ordered and designed for the electrification of the Sydney to Wallerawang route over the Blue Mountains in N.S.W.
The motivation was an expected increase in the volume of coal to be shipped from the western coalfields beyond Lithgow, in the mid to late 1950s.
This extra traffic would make the capacity of the then existing steam hauled double track Western Railway line inadequate.
Electrification was determined to be the most cost effective method of increasing the capacity of this line.
However the coal traffic estimates proved to be over optimistic and this, together with the location of a large existing steam locomotive depot at Lithgow, resulted in the electrification project being terminated at Bowenfels - on the outskirts of Lithgow.