locomotive was built at the Petone Railway Workshops in the Hutt Valley under Pearson's direct supervision and entered service on 23 February 1906. Rimutaka Incline service In a trial between Upper Hutt railway station and Summit railway station, the non-Incline portion of the route over the Rimutaka Range, E 66 successfully hauled forty-five wagons up the 1 in 35 grade. This was the equivalent of a load that would have required two WF class locomotives. The locomotive soon began work on the Incline as intended and was based at Cross Creek railway station at the foot of the Incline. It was rated to haul up to 80 tons on the Incline, 15 tons higher than the maximum permitted of the H class, and in a trial it successfully hauled 103 tons from Cross Creek up to Summit. However, it was much more costly to operate than the H class and thus ran only two-thirds the annual mileage of the H locomotives. E 66 consumed 167 pounds of coal per mile, while an H class used 117 pounds, and its operating cost was 54.10 pence per mile compared to 37.73 pence for an H. Furthermore, E 66's crews complained of excessive heat in the cab, especially through tunnels, and firemen had to wear heat-resistant asbestos pants due to the excessive heat. Transfer and withdrawal In December 1908, the WMR was purchased by NZR and its Wellington - Manawatu Line was incorporated into the national network as part of the North Island Main Trunk Railway (NIMT). Most traffic from beyond the Wairarapa was re-routed via the old WMR route as it was quicker and did not include the time-consuming Incline. Accordingly, by 1909, traffic over the Incline was in decline and primarily served the Wairarapa. The traffic volumes thus became manageable for the H locomotives alone, and E 66 was transferred from Cross Creek to Wellington despite its moderate success on the Incline. The NIMT contained a steeply graded section between Wellington and Johnsonville (now truncated as the Johnsonville Branch due to the Tawa Flat deviation) and E 66 was used to bank trains over this route. However, it had not been designed for this work and became unpopular with crews. Due to these problems, it did not meet the designer's ambitions and thus acquired the "Pearson's Dream" nickname. Due to its unpopularity in Wellington and increasing tonnages over the Incline due