The Nova Scotia Steel & Coal Co. received a crane locomotive in 1914 from Barclay, Sons & Co. of Scotland. It was basically a conventional, eight-coupled shunting locomotive with the crane mounted on the boiler. The engine was not only designed to move the crane locomotive itself, but also had similar dimensions to conventional locomotives in this size class.

The crane had one steam engine to rotate the jib and another to raise and lower the hook. Thus, the hook was always at a distance of almost five meters from the pivot point and it could always lift a load of eight long tons, regardless of the position of the boom.

In 1902, Beyer, Peacock & Co. built two 0-6-0T crane locomotives for the Queensland Government Railways with the works numbers 4317 and 4318. They had a saddle tank and the base of the crane was mounted in the cab, directly behind the firebox. While they had a long overhang at the front, the last axle was mounted on the extreme end of the locomotive. So the base of the crane was located between the second and third axles so carry the weight between them. Their owner designated them 6D11½, where the 6 stood for the number of driving wheels and the D stood for a tank locomotive. Finally, 11½ was the cylinder diameter in inches. Both lost their cranes in 1911 and 1912 and they were now used as shunters. With the removal of the cranes, the water tanks could be enlarged from 250 to 570 imperial gallons. Their withdrawals were in April and September of 1927.