The deterioration of a shunting locomotive was characterized for the lifetime assessment. The locomotive has been used for shunting works in steel making processes, and in this investigation, various types of technical evaluation methods for the locomotive parts were employed to assess the current deterioration status and to provide important clue for lifetime prediction. Unlike other rolling stocks in railway applications, the diesel shunting locomotive is composed of major components such as diesel engine, transmission, gear box, brake system, electronic devices, etc., which cover more than 70 percent of the total price of the locomotive. Therefore, in this paper, each part of major components in the diesel locomotive was analyzed in terms of the degree of deterioration. The lift-cycle-cost (LCC) analysis was performed based on the maintenance and repair history as compared with economical cost to provide the cost-effective prediction, i.e., to assess either repair for reuse or putting the locomotive out of service based on cost-effective calculation.