The Commonwealth Railways CL Class, manufactured by Clyde Engineering, under contract from EMD (Electro-Motive Diesel)  at their Granville NSW workshops, from 1970 to 1972, and is famously known as the last ever example of the "EMD Bulldog" design to be built in the world.

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Powered by an EMD 16-645E3 engine with a rated output of 3000hp, and a top speed of 130km/h, this class of engine was very similar, mechanically, to the earlier Western Australian L Class.

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These engines operated services along the Trans-Australian Railway, eventually running through from NSW to WA.

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The CL Class was later transferred to Australian National Railways (ANR) in 1975, (later becoming Australian National), which involved the class adopting it's second, very well known, green and yellow, Australian National livery.

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Post 1980, these engines begun running services through to Alice Springs and Adelaide after the standardisation of the lines' track gauges.

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These engines were then later "re-manufactured" by Morrison Knudsen to the CLF and CLP classes, denoted suffixes 'F' and 'P' for related freight and passenger workings.

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Many of these locos are still in service to this day, in their re-built forms, with Southern Shorthaul Railroad (SSR) and Aurizon. One example CLP10, now owned by well-known rail identity; Bernie Baker, is being rebuilt and retrofitted to its original identity of CL17, and is such preserved.