Argentina The
Vulcan Foundry built twenty Pacific locomotives for the former
Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway (BAGSR) in 1926, two of which still survive. A further single 12B class locomotive was built in 1930, and the 12K class of twelve Pacific locomotives was built for the BAGSR by Vulcan in 1938. In 1930, the
Central Argentine Railway (
Ferrocarril Central Argentino or FCCA) ordered twenty large three-cylinder PS11 class Pacific locomotives with
Caprotti valve gear, which were at the time the most powerful locomotives on the FCCA. In 1939, one of these set up a South American speed record, averaging on the
El Cordobes express across the non-stop run from
Rosario to
Buenos Aires, hauling a 500-ton train and at times attaining a maximum speed of nearly .
Australia In Australia, the first known example of the wheel arrangement was the
Q class tank locomotive of the gauge
Western Australian Government Railways (WAGR). The six locomotives were introduced in 1896, but four of them were soon converted to a
Hudson configuration. The WAGR was the largest user of Pacific tender types in Australia. In total, the WAGR operated at least 223 locomotives, acquired between 1902 and 1950, making it by far its most numerous wheel arrangement. • The first simple expansion (simplex) tender locomotives in Australia were ordered from British manufacturers for the WAGR. However, due to slow delivery times by the British companies as a result of full order books and their preference for larger orders, twenty compound expansion locomotives were also ordered from
Baldwin Locomotive Works in Pennsylvania and placed in service in 1902, designated the
Ec class. From 1923, these locomotives, designed for heavy goods and passenger traffic, were converted into light-lines L class engines, but without altering their wheel arrangement. • The British-built locomotives, the
WAGR E class, were built by
Nasmyth, Wilson & Company,
North British Locomotive Company (NBL) and
Vulcan Foundry between 1902 and 1912. These were the first of the type to be introduced in quantity, with 65 locomotives in the class. • Other Pacific type locomotives operated by the WAGR included the twenty-strong
C class, introduced in 1902, which were converted from a to a wheel arrangement from 1909. no. 508 • It was not until the introduction of the
WAGR P class in 1924 that
Western Australia received what many considered a true Pacific, a large, well balanced locomotive designed primarily for fast passenger traffic. The P class consisted of 25 locomotives, built in 1924 and 1925 by NBL as well as locally at the WAGR's
Midland Railway Workshops. The P class engines revolutionised express passenger travel in Western Australia by drastically reducing passenger travel times between destinations. • The first batch of ten WAGR Pr
River class locomotives, named after prominent rivers in Western Australia and with a boiler pressure rating of compared to the of the P class, were built in 1938 at the Midland Railway Workshops. Between 1941 and 1944, eight of the P class locomotives were also converted to
Pr class. One of them was preserved. • The
WAGR U class of fourteen oil burning locomotives, one of which was preserved, were purchased from NBL in 1946 as surplus war-work engines, following the World War II. • The WAGR's final Pacific design was its Pm and Pmr classes of 35 locomotives, introduced in 1950, five of which have been preserved. These locomotives were intended to replace the Pr class, but were quickly relegated to goods workings after proving to be rigid steamers. The
Midland Railway of Western Australia, one of the longest-lived privately owned railways in Australia, followed the WAGR's example by introducing five
class C locomotives which were built by
Kitson & Company to the
Karoo design of the
Cape Government Railways as basis. In the 1920s, heavy Pacific locomotives were introduced by both
South Australian Railways (SAR) and
Victorian Railways (VR), in response to increasingly heavy passenger trains and the demand for faster services. Although similar in size, power and top speed, their designs reflected different approaches. • The
SAR 600 class reflected contemporary American locomotive practice, both in design features and appearance, with two large cylinders. The SAR owned altogether twenty Pacific locomotives, of which the first ten were of the 600 class, supplied by
Armstrong Whitworth of the United Kingdom in 1922. The remainder were of the
620 class, built at
Islington Railway Workshops between 1936 and 1938. • The
VR S class, on the other hand, showed a strong British
London & North Eastern Railway influence, with three cylinders and with
Gresley conjugated valve gear driving the third inside cylinder. The VR's four S class locomotives were built at Newport Works between 1928 and 1930. , c. 1910 The VR also built a locomotive class, the
Dde class that was developed from a successful Dd class design in 1908, intended for outer suburban passenger services in
Melbourne. The gauge
Queensland Railways (QR) had two Pacific locomotive classes. Between 1926 and 1947, 83
B18¼ class were introduced to haul mail trains. The prototype, built by QR's
Ipswich Workshops, began trial runs on 16 July 1926 and was followed by two batches of eight locomotives in 1927 and 1929. The last locomotive of this class was delivered in 1947. In 1950, QR ordered 35
BB18¼ class locomotives from
Vulcan Foundry, developed from the successful B18¼ class.
3801 The
New South Wales Government Railways (NSWGR) introduced its
C38 class for express passenger service in 1943. These two-cylinder Pacifics had a free-steaming boiler and were renowned for their performance. Class leader
3801 achieved considerable fame in preservation, with notable feats such as hauling the
Western Endeavour, a transcontinental journey from
Sydney to
Perth in 1970. The
Tasmanian Government Railways owned fourteen Pacific locomotives. Four
R class were built for passenger trains by
Perry Engineering in
Adelaide and ten
M class were built by
Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns in 1951, and were used on all trains on major lines in northern
Tasmania.
Austria The only Pacific type to be built in Austria was the class 629
tank locomotive of the
Imperial Royal Austrian State Railways (kkStB), later the
Österreichische Bundesbahnen (ÖBB), of which 95 were built between 1913 and 1927. This highly successful locomotive remained in service until 1975. The class 629 was later also produced and developed in
Czechoslovakia as the class 354.1 of the
Czechoslovak State Railways (ČSD). Between 1921 and 1941, 219 of these locomotives were built there and, in addition, seventeen of the original Austrian class 629 locomotives were used there. They survived in service until 1978. Three examples have been preserved.
Burma Burma was administered as a province of British India from 1886 until 1937. In 1932, the
Vulcan Foundry built three locomotives of the YC class for the
Burma Railways. Since most of Burma's locomotive stock was destroyed during the Japanese occupation of Burma in the World War II, Vulcan Foundry delivered sixty Pacific locomotives of the YB class in 1947, after the war. 's Pacific no. 593 The Reid-Newfoundland Company Limited, which operated the railways in
Newfoundland, took delivery of ten Pacific locomotives with drivers between 1920 and 1929, built by Baldwin, Montreal and ALCO Schenectady. Numbered 190 to 199, they had two cylinders and weighed 56.3 tons. They all passed to the Government-owned
Newfoundland Railway, and then to
Canadian National (CN) when Newfoundland joined the
Confederation of Canada. CN renumbered them 591 to 599 and classified them as J-8-a (BLW 54398–54401 and 54466–54467 of 1920), J-8-b (BLW 59531 and MLW 67129, both of 1926) and J-8-c (ALCO-Schenectady 67941–67942 of 1929). They were the only Pacific-type locomotives built to operate on gauge in North America. The only surviving Newfoundland steam locomotive, the Newfoundland Railway no. 193, later CN no. 593, is preserved and on display at the Humbermouth Historic Train Site in Newfoundland. (Also see )
China The Japanese introduced several classes of Pacific locomotive during their occupation of Manchuria, but the
Pashiro became the standard and was China's most numerous class of steam passenger locomotive. Between 1933 and 1944, around 272 were built for the
South Manchuria Railway (SMR), the Manchurian National Railway and the railways of occupied North China. They were built by various Japanese builders, including
Dalian and
Sifang, while the SMR's own workshops were also involved in the construction. The Japanese-built
Pashina locomotives were used on the
Asia Express train between 1934 and 1943, during Japanese control of the SMR. These were built by
Kawasaki and Dalian. The name
Shengli (Victory) was used for all classes of Pacific inherited by the new China in 1951. The
Pashiro became the
Shengli 6 (
SL6 class), while the
Pashina locomotives were designated
Shengli 7 (
SL7 class) under Chinese ownership. The Sifang works resumed production of SL6 class locomotives in 1956 and completed 151 locomotives before moving on to RM class construction in 1958. The inability of the class to haul the heavier passenger trains that were introduced in the 1970s and 1980s, saw them progressively being re-allocated to secondary duties. By 1990, most of the survivors were concentrated in Manchuria at the Dashiqiao, Jilin and Baicheng depots. The
China Railways RM was China's last steam passenger design. It was a late 1950s development of the successful pre-war SL6 class Pacific and became the standard passenger class. The class, numbered RM 1001 to 1258, entered service in 1958 and a total of 258 were built before production ceased in 1966. In the 1970s, they were gradually displaced from premier services by locomotives more suited to handling heavier trains and they ended their service lives on secondary passenger duties.
Czechoslovakia Between 1926 and 1967, two Pacific
tender locomotive classes were built in Czechoslovakia and operated by the
Czechoslovak State Railways (
Československé státní dráhy or ČSD). These were the ČSD
Class 387.0 and Class 399.0 express passenger locomotives. The 2100 horsepower Pacific Class 387.0 was the most successful of these, nicknamed
Mikádo because of its short chimney. Between 1926 and 1937, 43 were built in five series by the
Škoda Works in
Plzeň, intended for the heaviest long-distance express trains. This class is considered to have been among the most successful locomotives in Europe. The locomotives began to be withdrawn in 1967, with the last one being retired in 1974. One locomotive, no. 387.043, has been preserved. (Also see
Austria)
Egypt Prior to 1954, the
Egyptian State Railways used
Atlantic or
Ten-wheeler types on express passenger trains. However, in 1953 a requirement arose for a locomotive capable of hauling 550-tonne trains over the from
Cairo to
Alexandria in two hours. These were originally going to be
Hudson locomotives, but the specification was eased to suit a 500-tonne train load, allowing a type to be used. They were ordered from
Société Alsacienne (SACM) at Grafenstaden in France. The class was unusual in being designed for oil burning, with a long narrow firebox and combustion chamber fitted between the plate frames. They had a short lifespan in express train service, since the 1956 war put an end to fast train running in Egypt. The Pacifics were then transferred to haul slower night express trains to
Luxor and
Aswan. Some remained in service up to 1967.
Ethiopia The French-owned
Imperial Railway Company of Ethiopia, with of trackage, had four Pacific type locomotives on its roster. The first one was bought from
Forges, Usines et Fonderies de Haine-Saint-Pierre in Belgium in 1923. This locomotive had been ordered by the Spanish railway
Ferrocarril Madrid-Aragon in 1914, prior to the outbreak of the
World War I, but it was never delivered for reasons unknown. The locomotive used saturated steam and had coupled wheels, which made it well suited to run the between
Addis Abeba and
Dire Dawa in Ethiopia. (Also see
Spain) Three more similar Pacific locomotives, but
superheated, were ordered in 1936. They arrived after the Italian conquest of
Ethiopia and were allocated to the Addis Abeba and Dire Dawa sheds. They continued to haul passenger trains until the mainline diesels arrived in 1956, after which all were soon withdrawn from service and scrapped in the early 1960s.
Finland Twenty-two Pacific locomotives of the
Class Hr1, numbers 1000 to 1021 and named
Ukko-Pekka after the
nickname of Finnish President
Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, were constructed in Finland by
Tampella and
Lokomo between 1937 and 1957. They were the largest passenger locomotives to be built and used in Finland and remained the primary locomotives on express trains for Southern Finland until 1963, when the
Hr12 class diesel locomotives took over. " class Hr1 The last two Class Hr1 locomotives to be built in 1957, numbers 1020 and 1021, Lokomo works numbers 474 and 475, were equipped throughout with
SKF C-type roller bearings, even on the coupled rod big ends, and represented a fine combination of American and German locomotive building practices. They were, along with the
Deutsche Bundesbahn class 10, the last new-built Pacific type locomotives in Europe. When tested after delivery from Lokomo or Tampella, each locomotive reached , but in everyday service their speed was limited to . All the locomotives were initially located at Pasila depot in Helsinki, but in 1959 the last seven to be built were transferred to Kouvola depot. By European standards, Class Hr1 locomotives ran high annual kilometre figures, between per locomotive per year between 1937 and 1963. The two fully roller bearing-equipped locomotives even exceeded the mark in 1961, the highest annual kilometre figure to be obtained by a steam locomotive in Northern Europe. The only similar annual kilometres by European Pacific type locomotives were run in Germany and by the roller bearing-equipped
Peppercorn Class A1 locomotives of the
London and North Eastern Railway in the United Kingdom. At least twelve class Hr1 locomotives were preserved as at April 2008, of which two were in operational condition. These were no. 1021, owned by the
VR Group, and the privately owned no. 1009. No. 1001 was reserved for the Railway Museum in Hyvinkää and no. 1002 was reserved for the city of Helsinki as a possible static monument.
France France was a major user of the Pacific type. Following the introduction of two successful
Paris à Orléans prototypes in 1907, a
further 1,362 Pacific locomotives were built for or acquired by the major French railway companies, including those acquired from
Germany following the terms of the
Armistice in 1918. 4546 at the Cité du train at Mulhouse The
Paris à Orléans ordered a further 98 Pacific locomotives that were delivered between 1908 and 1910, and another 89 in 1909 and 1910. Another fifty were ordered from the
American Locomotive Company in 1921 and forty of the type
TP-État were bought in 1923. The company was particularly famous for the
Chapelon Pacifics of 1929 to 1932. The ''
L'Ouest'' followed with two prototype locomotives in 1908, but did not continue with the Pacific type. The
Alsace-Lorraine built
eight Pacific locomotives in 1909, at the time when the railway was still under German control. These became French locomotives in 1920. The
Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée (PLM) was the largest French user of Pacific locomotives, owning 462, built between 1909 and 1932. These were both
compound and simple locomotives and were built both with and without
superheaters. Large numbers were later rebuilt to compounds or to incorporate superheaters by both the PLM and the state-owned
SNCF. E 41 at St-Pierre-des-Corps The
Nord built 139 Pacific locomotives from 1912, including the various so-called
Superpacific types of 1923 to 1931. The company also ordered Chapelon type rebuilds from the
Paris à Orléans in 1934, and new-built locomotives between 1936 and 1938.
231 G Ouest no. 558, preserved by the
Pacific Vapeur Club The
''L'État'' owned 352 Pacific locomotives, some of which were transferred from the
Bavarian Railways and
Württemberg Railways as Armistice reparations in 1918. The
Midi likewise owned altogether forty Pacific locomotives, acquired in three batches. The eastern ''
L'Est never built a , preferring its Ten-wheeler types until it progressed straight to the much larger Mountain type. The L'Est
nevertheless bought Pacific locomotives to the designs of other companies, including forty TP-État'' type class 11 s locomotives between 1921 and 1923, and twelve class 12 s Chapelon rebuilds in 1934. After nationalisation in 1938, the
SNCF built no more Pacifics, although it continued to rebuild some of the existing stock running on lines already established by the private railway companies, particularly by continuing to apply the great improvements brought about by the work of
André Chapelon.
Germany Class IVf The first Pacific locomotive for a German railway was the
Baden IV f class for the
Grand Duchy of Baden State Railways (), designed by
Maffei in 1905. However, due to manufacturing delays, the first three locomotives were not introduced until 1907, shortly after the first French Pacifics. They were four-cylinder
compound locomotives of the
Von Borries type. After the Maffei locomotives, a further 32 were built under license by
Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft Karlsruhe and delivered between 1907 and 1913. While they were successful in the mountainous regions of the G.Bad.St.E., their small driving wheels led to overheating at high speed on level track. Consequently, a new design was created, the
Baden IV h, twenty of which were built by Maffei between 1918 and 1920. Most lasted to the end of World War II, with four surviving as test locomotives – three for
Deutsche Bundesbahn and one for
Deutsche Reichsbahn. Three of these four have survived into preservation. However, the most successful early German Pacific class was the
Bavarian S 3/6 class of the
Royal Bavarian State Railways (
Königliche Bayerische Staats-Eisenbahnen), designed by Anton Hammel and Heinrich Leppla of Maffei. This was a larger development of the Baden IV f class, with a four-cylinder compound arrangement. Altogether 159 of them were built between 1908 and 1931, with the last one being retired from ordinary service in 1969. When the various pre-First World War Pacific locomotives from the different German state railway companies were grouped together by the
Deutsche Reichsbahn as the Class 18 with seven sub-classes, the Baden Class IV f became the DRG 18.2 class while the Bavarian S 3/6 class became the DRG 18.4-5 class. During the 1920s and 1930s the Deutsche Reichsbahn continued to build new Pacific designs, such as the
Class 01.10 to
Class 03.10 subclasses.
Hungary The Hungarian locomotive builder
MÁVAG (
Magyar Királyi Államvasutak Gépgyára) built several classes of locomotives after 1914, both for the
Hungarian State Railways (
Magyar Államvasutak or MÁV) and for export elsewhere in Europe. MÁV Pacific number 301.016 has been preserved at the Hungarian Railway Heritage Park Museum in
Budapest.
India The earliest Indian locomotives were two Class C locomotives, built for the narrow gauge
Darjeeling Himalayan Railway by the
North British Locomotive Company in 1914. Both were retired in 1976. From the mid-1920s until the 1970s, the Pacific type became very common on both the
broad gauge and
narrow gauge lines in India.
Broad gauge In 1924, the Locomotive Standards Committee of the Indian Government recommended eight basic types of locomotive for use on the sub-continent, three of which were . These were the XA class for branch line passenger working, the XB class for light passenger trains and the XC class for heavy passenger trains. The
Vulcan Foundry built large numbers of all these classes for the different Indian railways between the late 1920s and early 1930s, beginning with fourteen each for the
East Indian Railway Company (EIR) and the
Great Indian Peninsula Railway (GIPR) in 1927. There were also two WL classes. The first four locomotives, built in 1939 by Vulcan Foundry for the
North Western State Railway, went to Pakistan upon the
India-Pakistan partition. A second Indian WL class was introduced in 1955 and ten of these locomotives were built by Vulcan Foundry.
Narrow gauge The
Bengal Nagpur Railway had a saturated C class, a superheated CS class, and a CC class comprising C class locomotives that had been converted from saturated to superheated steam. The South India Railway (SIR) ordered six YB class and two XB class Pacific locomotives from the Vulcan Foundry in 1928. The
Mysore State Railway had the E, ES and ES/1 classes. The
Scindia State Railway had a class of eight NM class locomotives, built by
W. G. Bagnall in 1931. The only post-World War II on narrow gauge Indian Railways were the five ZP class locomotives with six-wheel tenders, built by
Nippon Sharyo in Japan in 1954.
Indonesia In the early of 20th century,
Staatsspoorwegen operated
4-4-0 two-cylinder
compound SS Class 600 as express locomotives for mixed freight-passenger traffics in
Java. SS imported 44 units of them in 1900–1908 from
Hanomag,
Hartmann and
Werkspoor worked as the workhorse of express trains. In 1908, the line between
Cheribon–
Kroya had been built which shortened the travel time between
Batavia and
Surabaya. By the increase in the volume of freight and passenger transports, the SS 600s were felt to be not so fast and sufficient to serve the increasing flow of transports. As a result, SS ordered the new express locomotive to
Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works (SLM) and
Sächsische Maschinenfabrik (Hartmann) with specifications that it could haul a series of freights in flat-line weighing up to 300 tons and gain a top speed of 80 kilometres per hour (50 miles per hour). They received 11 units of their two-cylinder
superheated 4-6-2 from SLM in 1911 and 1912, while the rest of 5 were from Hartmann in 1911 and 1914 and classified as the SS Class 700 (701–716). In a number of locomotive performance tests on the
Cikampek-Pegadenbaru line in 1913, another on the Maos-
Jogja line in 1914 and on Cikampek-
Cheribon line in 1915, these locomotives could reach speeds of more than 120 kilometres per hour (75 miles per hour) and gained world fastest
cape gauge locomotive in 1914–1915. SS remarked on the SS Class 700 as engine that had fast and stable performance and soon they were placed in
Meester Cornelis,
Jogjakarta,
Madiun and Surabaya depots. By 1927, SS 701–705 were allocated to
South Sumatra division (ZSS) for passenger and freight train transports. With all the advantages of SS Class 700s followed by the increasing of demands and traffics, the SS was attracted in making their new faster and stronger locomotives. Therefore, they sent a proposal to Dutch engineers and were manufactured in Netherlands by
Nederlandsche Fabriek van Werktuigen en Spoorwegmaterieel (Werkspoor). Twenty of new advanced 4-6-2 locomotives arrived in 1920–1922 and classified as
SS 1000 class (1001–1020) with a driver's cabin design that tapered to forward giving the impression of grace and speed, in addition of wheel arrangement supplemented with four
compound cylinders and
superheater was expected to provide the faster, more stability and fuel efficiency that required to haul express trains, but this was not achieved. At the first of the performance test, the locomotive had shown poor performance especially when driven at speeds over 90 kilometres per hour (55 miles per hour). There some complaints that the SS Class 1000 locomotives were oscillated showed by record that the stoker couldn't put a shovel of coal into firebox due to hard shaking when driven at speeds above 100 kilometres per hour (67 miles per hour), while excessive wear on the third driving wheels and there was design error in manufacturing which led to maintenance difficulties (in other records, they had a design flaw at the trailing wheels causing instability). However, SS still preserved it as the main engine hauling express trains with high maintenance costs. SS also recalled the SS 700s along with the
4-6-4T SS 1300s to haul express trains by bringing back their achievements on speed and stability. Ironically, the myriad achievements of the SS Class 700 were overshadowed by SS Class 1000 when worked to haul the
Eendaagsche and
Java Nacht express trains by 1929 and mid 1930s. After
Japanese occupation and
Indonesian Independence, both locomotives renumbered as C50 and C53. The majority of the class had been scrapped after independence (around 1960-70s). It could be said the C50 classes were the extinct class of express locomotives due to lack of documentations and they were scrapped when the last 2 of them were still operating in Tanjungkarang around 1970s. The last survivor of C53 was number 17, which lasted until the final days of steam locomotives in
Indonesia. During its last days in service before retirement, it was used to haul local passenger trains between
Bangil and
Surabaya Kota and now preserved as static display at the Transportation Museum of
Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
Iraq When the
Baghdad Railway was nearing completion between
Mosul and the town of Tel Kotchek on the border with
Syria, the
Iraqi State Railways ordered four streamlined Pacific locomotives from
Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns in the United Kingdom, to haul the international
Taurus Express between
Istanbul in
Turkey and
Baghdad in
Iraq on the Iraqi stage of its journey. Three were delivered in 1941 and designated the
PC class, but the fourth was lost
en route. When the Iraqi standard gauge railways were
dieselised in the 1960s, the class was withdrawn from service.
Italy Between 1911 and 1914, 33 Pacific locomotives of the 690 class were built for the
Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (Italian State Railways), twenty by
Breda in Milan, ten by
Ansaldo in
Genoa and three by
Officine Meccaniche in
Milan. Between 1928 and 1931, these locomotives were rebuilt with larger boilers and reclassified as Class 691. One of them, no. 691.011, established the Italian speed record for steam locomotives at . The whole class was withdrawn between 1962 and 1963. One locomotive, no. 691.022, has been preserved at the
Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia di Milano (National Museum of Science and Technology of Milan).
Japan The
Japanese Government Railways built a number of designs between 1920 and the 1950s. The most notable was possibly the
JNR Class C51, the first Japanese-built high-speed passenger locomotive, used for express services on the
Tōkaidō mainline and later on regional trunk lines. Five of these locomotives were built in 1920. Other Japanese Pacific designs included the
C52 class, built from 1926 to 1929, the
C53 class, built from 1928 to 1929, the
C54 class, built in 1931, the
C55 class, the
C57 class built from 1937 to 1953, and the
C59 class. The C57 Class, of which 201 were built by
Kawasaki,
Kisha Seizō,
Mitsubishi and
Hitachi, was the JNR's last steam locomotive and was used until 1975 to work passenger trains on the
Muroran mainline between
Iwamizawa and Muroran in
Hokkaido.
Malawi The Nyasaland Railways (the
Malawi Railways after independence) obtained six Class F Pacific type locomotives from the
British War Department in 1946, to work on the Trans-Zambesi Railway (TZR). The locomotives had been built by the
North British Locomotive Company in 1942 and were numbered TZR 25 to 30. All six were still in service on the Malawi Railways in 1973. When they arrived, their older American-built counterparts were relieved of mainline duty to haul the Lourenço Marques local suburban services. All the Pacifics were allocated to the Lourenço Marques shed for the whole of their service lives and all were still in service in 1971.
New Zealand The first true Pacifics, the original thirteen
Q class locomotives built by Baldwin for the
New Zealand Railways Department (NZR) in 1901, worked until withdrawal in 1957. None were preserved. In 1960 Ted Blomfield, locomotive fitter at Rotorua, New Zealand, built a
Super Q Pacific for the 1 foot gauge Toot and Whistle Railway. The engine operated at Toot and Whistle's Kuirau park railway for six years before officialdom demanded the locomotive be retired. It was replaced by a
Black Five replica. Another
Super Q exists as a 5 inch-gauge engine.
Nigeria Between 1926 and 1928, the gauge Nigerian Railways ordered ten Class 405 Pacifics from
Nasmyth, Wilson & Company in
Manchester, for express services on the line between
Lagos and
Kano. They used saturated steam and had outside cylinders and driving wheels. All ten were named and they hauled named trains like the
North Mail and
Boat Express, both averaging only between stops. They were ousted from principal passenger trains when the first mainline diesel locomotives arrived, but continued working less important secondary train services well into the 1970s.
Philippines The
Manila Railroad (MRR) operated two classes of this type. Unlike with most rail operators of the time, this was not the most popular wheel arrangement in its mainline steam locomotive fleet as types that had eight
driving wheels such as
4-8-2 and
2-8-2 were more successful in the country. The first were six 120 class 4-6-2T tank units built by the North British Locomotive Company of Glasgow. They were first built in 1906 and entered service in 1908. These were primarily used on various services on what was the
PNR North Main Line. As larger tender locomotives built by American firms started entering service in the early 1920s, these were relegated to branch line and switching services. By 1952, only one unit survived and it was scrapped not long after. An expansion of the class was ordered in 1910. However, these two tank locomotives that were numbered 127 and 128, were
4-6-4T
Baltic types which entered service in 1917. The second were ten 140 class locomotives built by Baldwin between 1926 and 1929 as part of the modernization efforts of the MRR to replace its aging British-built tank locomotives throughout its network. These were used on express services on what is now the
PNR South Main Line.
Poland In the
Polish State Railways (
Polskie Koleje Państwowe or PKP) locomotive classification system, locomotives with a 2C1 ( ) axle arrangement were identified with the letter "m" in the class prefix. Express locomotives therefore had a "Pm" prefix, passenger locomotives an "Om" prefix and tank passenger locomotives an "OKm" prefix. The
PKP class Pm36 consisted of two experimental Polish prototype express locomotives, built by
Fablok of
Chrzanów in 1937. One of them, no. Pm36-1, was streamlined, while the other had a standard appearance in order to compare their respective performances in terms of top speed, acceleration and coal and water consumption. The Pm36-1 won a gold medal at the
International Exposition of Modern Art and Technology in Paris in 1937. It was damaged and later scrapped during
World War II, but Pm36-2 survived and worked on the PKP until 1965, when it was given to the Warsaw Railway Museum. In 1995, it was rebuilt and restored to mainline specifications and nicknamed
Beautiful Helene. As of 2011, while still remaining museum property, the locomotive was in regular service at
Wolsztyn. Besides these two Polish-built locomotives, several German DRG class 03, class 0310 and class 181 locomotives (ex
Württemberg Class C) and Austrian class 629 tank locomotives saw service in Poland as the classes Pm2, Pm3, Om101 and OKm11 respectively. (Also see
Germany) and (
Austria) One narrow gauge Pacific locomotive, the
Belgijka, built in 1935 by Ateliers Métallurgiques in
Nivelles and Tubize in Belgium, was also used in Poland and is preserved at the
Narrow Gauge Railway Museum in Wenecja, Poland.
Portugal The Portuguese Railways (
Caminhos de Ferro Portugueses or CP) had two batches of Pacific 2C1-h2 class locomotives running on its broad gauge lines, built by
Henschel & Son in 1924 and 1925. The first batch of ten locomotives, numbered 551 to 560, were used on lines south of the river
Tagus, while the second batch of eight, numbered 501 to 508, were built for the Porto line north of the Tagus. Both Pacific classes had deep and narrow
fireboxes and the same cylinders, coupled wheels and motion as the
Ten-wheelers of the class CP 351 to 370. The Pacifics were capable of very fast running. Before World War II, the CP was renowned for the speed of its trains. The track was carefully maintained, laid with rails, and the speed limit of was frequently reached with steam locomotives. In normal service, these engines could haul 400 tons behind the tender at on level track. In 1939, a four-coach train weighing 170 tons and hauled by a Pacific locomotive of the class 501–508, covered the from Porto to Lisbon-Campolide in 189 minutes, at an average speed of , with stops at Papilhosa and
Entroncamento. A distance of of slightly falling, level or slightly rising gradient could be covered at speeds of , while station stops lasting less than a minute were frequent. These locomotives began to be replaced by diesels in the 1960s and disappeared from the scene in the early 1970s. One of the Pacific locomotives, no. 553, is preserved at the Santarém depot museum.
Russia/Soviet Union Pacifics were not common in Russia. The only known examples were the four-cylinder L class express passenger locomotives, built by the
Putilov Works at
Saint Petersburg for the
Vladikavkaz Railway in 1914. The chief designer was Vazlav Lopushinskii, who later emigrated from Soviet Russia. These locomotives were the most powerful passenger locomotives in Tsarist Russia. Eighteen locomotives were built between 1914 and 1919, allocated to the
Rostov-on-Don, Tihoretskaya, Kavkazkaya,
Armavir and
Mineralnye Vody depots. They hauled principal express and heavy passenger trains between Rostov-on-Don and Vladikavkaz, a distance of . All were oil fired. After the
October Revolution, a further 48 L class locomotives were built at Putilov Works between 1922 and 1926. At first, these coal fired locomotives were allocated to the
October Railway to haul principal passenger trains over a distance of of double track line between the two largest cities in
Soviet Russia, Moscow and Leningrad. At the time, train speeds in Soviet Russia were slow and the fastest train took fourteen hours and thirty minutes between the two cities. The trains, which were running four return workings daily, were rather heavy with train loads often exceeding 700 metric tons behind the tender. In 1936, the express trains were running at an average speed of with four intermediate stops between these cities. Locomotives were usually changed at
Tver. When the production of the heavier
Berkshire class IS
Joseph Stalin got under way in 1937, the Pacifics were modified from coal to oil firing and transferred to join other older locomotives on the
North Caucasus lines, from where they worked as far south as to
Baku. In 1941, seventeen locomotives were allocated to the
North Caucasus Railway, 29 to the
Transcaucasus Railway and six to the Orenburg Railway. In 1942, during the German summer invasion into North Caucasus, all the class L Pacifics were evacuated from there to the Transcaucasus Railway. After World War II, in 1947, they were designated Lp class and were relieved from heavier duties. A number were withdrawn from service between 1956 and 1959. The last one, Lp class no. 151, was retired from
Grozny depot in 1967. In 1945, 34 Pacific locomotives of the
Deutsche Reichsbahn's
Class 03 and two streamlined
Class 03.10 Pacific locomotives fell into Russian hands in
East Prussia. They were regauged to gauge and allocated to the
Lithuanian Railways, where they hauled express and passenger trains from
Vilnius to
Kaliningrad (
Königsberg) and to
Minsk. The last ones were withdrawn from service in 1957.
South Africa Cape gauge Natal Government Railways as
Hairy Mary, c. 1898 The first use of the wheel arrangement in South Africa was c. 1890. During 1887, designs for a 2-8-2 Mikado type tank-and-tender locomotive were prepared by the
Natal Government Railways (NGR). The locomotive was built in the Durban workshops and entered service in 1888, named
Havelock, but it was soon rebuilt to a 4-6-2 Pacific configuration.
Havelock was the first locomotive to be designed and built in South Africa. During the
Second Boer War Havelock saw action in service on armoured trains. Unlike usual practice in such cases, the engine was not equipped with armour plate protection, but was draped in strands of thick hemp rope which earned it the apt nickname
Hairy Mary amongst the troops. No more tank locomotives with the Pacific wheel arrangement saw use on in South Africa. Two Class 2 variants were introduced on the NGR between 1905 and 1910. • In 1905, two
Class A Pacific tender locomotives entered service on the NGR, designed by Locomotive Superintendent D.A. Hendrie and built by NBL. They had plate frames, used saturated steam and had
Stephenson valve gear. To accommodate the wide and deep firebox, Hendrie used a bridle casting similar to that introduced on the CGR by Beatty with his
Class 6 2-6-2 Prairie in 1903. This method of widening the frames for the firebox continued in South African locomotive design until 1927, when the general adoption of bar frames rendered it no longer necessary. In 1912, they were designated
Class 2 on the SAR. • The Enlarged Karoo, built by
Vulcan Foundry, was one of the locomotive types that were designed and ordered by the CGR before the SAR was established and that ended up being delivered to the newly established national railways of the
Union of South Africa in 1912. It was a larger and heavier version of the Class 5B, with a higher pitched boiler,
Belpaire firebox, larger diameter leading and coupled wheels and larger cylinders. The four locomotives were designated
Class 5. One of them was later reboilered with a Watson Standard no. 1 boiler, equipped with a superheater and reclassified to Class 5R.
Central South African Railways , SAR no. 727 Five Class 9 Pacific passenger locomotives, designed by P.A. Hyde, the first Chief Locomotive Superintendent of the Central South African Railways (CSAR), were delivered from
Vulcan Foundry in 1904. They had bar frames, Stephenson valve gear and used
saturated steam, and proved very useful for passenger work with moderate loads, working the mail trains from
Johannesburg to
Durban as far as
Charlestown on the Transvaal-Natal border for many years. They retained their
Class 9 classification on the SAR. In 1907, the NGR placed another six tank locomotives in service, designed by Hendrie based on his Hunslet Side Tank. Built by
Hawthorn Leslie and Company, they also had outside plate frames and used
Walschaerts valve gear. They were commonly known as the Hawthorn Leslie Side Tanks and were acquired specifically for the new narrow gauge
Donnybrook-Esperanza Railway in Natal. They came onto the SAR roster in 1912 and were later classified as
Class NG3.
Taiwan The first Pacific type locomotives appeared in Formosa (now
Taiwan) in 1912 when
ALCO-
Rogers delivered three locomotives that were derived from the
Japanese Government Railways type 8900. They were numbered from 200 to 202. One more locomotive, number 203, was delivered in 1913. They hauled the most important passenger express trains between
Taihoku and
Takao. In 1935, five more locomotives of the Japanese Government Railways Class 55 were added, numbered 551 to 555, and in 1938 four more were delivered, numbered 556 to 559.
Hitachi delivered eight more Japanese
Class 57 locomotives, presumably as war reparations, to the
Taiwan Railway Administration. These were the last Pacific type locomotives to arrive in Taiwan under the
Chiang Kai-shek administration.
Thailand The Royal State Railways of Siam (RSR), the predecessor of the
State Railway of Thailand (SRT), introduced new standard Pacific locomotives for express trains and
mixed-traffic trains to supersede the E-Class locomotives which had been commissioned between 1915 and 1921. The first type of Pacific Locomotive was purchased from Batignolles-Châtillon in France in 1925. Others followed from
Baldwin Locomotive Works between 1926 and 1929 and were prominent on Southern lines. There were also the successful
Hanomag Pacific locomotives of 1928–1929, the design of which late became a model for the Pacific locomotives imported from Japan. The final type of Pacific steam locomotive was when RSR imported the parts for 10 locomotives, based on the Hanomag design, from Japan during 1942 and 1943. However, assembly of these at the Makkasan Factory was not completed until 1945. After the
World War II, RSR imported a further thirty Pacific type locomotives from Japan in 1949–50, numbered 821 to 850. Two of them, numbers 824 and 850, were still in service with SRT in 2014 for special nostalgic trips.
Tunisia Standard gauge In 1914, the Tunisian
Chemins de fer Bône-Guelma placed five Pacific locomotives in service at
Tunis, built by
Société Alsacienne de Constructions Mécaniques (SACM). They were numbered 181 to 185, later to be renumbered to
Tunisian Railways (
Société Nationale de Chemins de Fer Tunisiens) numbers 231.181 to 231.185. A further four were supplied in 1923 and three more in 1938, also built by SACM. They worked the line from Tunis to
Ghardimaou on the Algerian border, hauling the Tunis-
Algiers direct express trains. They also worked some semi-fast passenger trains on the line between Tunis and
Bizerta. They hauled all principal express and passenger trains between Tunis Ville and Ghardimaou until 1951, when the new mainline diesels relegated them to secondary trains. All were withdrawn from service during 1954 and 1955.
Metre gauge Also in 1914, the
Chemins de fer Bône-Guelma ordered five locomotives from SACM. The engine weight in working order was 56.6 metric tonnes, with coupled wheels of diameter and two cylinders. They were considered very successful and Tunisian Railways ordered three more in 1928. These were used on the mainline south from Tunis to
Sousse and the line to
Sfax. Between the two World Wars, they were renowned for providing the fastest metre gauge service in the world and speeds of over were common in ordinary service. When the Tunisian Railways dieselised between 1951 and 1955, these locomotives were withdrawn from service and placed in staging, even though as late as in 1952 they still regularly achieved speeds of up to . In 1958, numbers 231.801, 231.805, 231.807 and 231.808 were sold to the
Ferrocarril La Robla in Spain. Those which remained in Tunisia were scrapped in 1959. (Also see
Spain)
United Kingdom Tender locomotives Prior to the
1923 Grouping, only five locomotives had been built in the United Kingdom. The first of these was
No. 111, The Great Bear, introduced by the
Great Western Railway (GWR) in 1908. This was an experimental locomotive which proved to be more powerful than the railway's requirements and also too heavy for much of its infrastructure. As a result, it was scrapped in 1924 and many of the parts were used to build a
GWR 4073 Castle Class
"ten-wheeler"" locomotive. The
Great Northern Railway (GNR) and the
North Eastern Railway (NER) each built two Pacific types in 1922, later to become the
Classes A1/A3 and
A2 on the
London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). Further examples of these two classes were built by the LNER after 1923. The GNR
Class A1, designed by
Nigel Gresley and later rebuilt into the improved Class A3, featured three cylinders and an innovative
conjugated valve gear. The class eventually consisted of 79 locomotives. After initial teething problems, it proved to be an excellent design and one of them,
Flying Scotsman, was the first locomotive to be officially recorded as reaching . , holder of the world speed record for steam traction. This speed was surpassed by the streamlined
LNER Class A4 of 1935, when
No. 2509 Silver Link reached on its inaugural run in 1935. Three years later, on 3 July 1938,
No. 4468 Mallard touched , which is still the world speed record for steam traction. 35 locomotives of the class were built by 1938. A further 89 Pacific locomotives of the
Peppercorn Class A1,
Thompson Class A1/1,
Peppercorn Class A2,
Thompson Class A2/1,
Thompson Class A2/2 and
Thompson Class A2/3 were either built or rebuilt for the LNER by
Edward Thompson and
Arthur Peppercorn, although many actually only appeared in the
British Railways (BR) era after 1948. In 2008, one further locomotive of the Peppercorn Class A1 design, the
60163 Tornado, was built by the
A1 Steam Locomotive Trust. During World War II, the
Southern Railway (SR) introduced two classes of Pacific, designed by New Zealander
Oliver Bulleid. These were the
Merchant Navy Class and the
West Country and Battle of Britain Class. These two classes continued to be built in the BR era and eventually totalled thirty Merchant Navy Class locomotives and 110 West Country and Battle of Britain Class locomotives. The 55
BR Standard Class 7 Britannia Pacifics, introduced in 1951, were of a simple expansion two-cylinder design with
Walschaerts valve gear. Their conservative design reflected a requirement for a more cost-effective, lower maintenance locomotive. Ten locomotives of a lighter version, the
BR Standard Class 6, were introduced in 1952. The final Pacific design in the United Kingdom was the
BR Standard class 8 No. 71000 Duke of Gloucester, of which only one was built in 1954. It had many parts in common with the Britannias, but had three cylinders and
Caprotti valve gear.
Tank locomotives Four tank locomotive designs were introduced in the United Kingdom during 1910 and 1911.
Charles Bowen-Cooke of the
London and North Western Railway (LNWR) introduced his
Prince of Wales Tank Class in 1910. It was a tank locomotive version of his successful 4-6-0|
Prince of Wales Class. 47 were built for suburban services out of
Euston station. In the same year, the
NER Class Y, designed by
Wilson Worsdell and later to become the LNER Class A7, was introduced by Worsdell's successor for hauling coal trains. It had been developed from the
NER Class X 4-8-0| heavy shunters, later the LNER Class T1. Also in 1910,
D. E. Marsh of the
London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) designed an entirely new
J1 class locomotive for
London to Brighton express trains. Only one was built before his successor,
Lawson Billinton, altered the design to create the
J2 class. The most successful and longest surviving British class was the
9N class, later the LNER A5 class, of the
Great Central Railway (GCR), introduced in 1911. It was designed by
John G. Robinson and the last of the class survived until 1961. Four batches were built between 1911 and 1923 and a fifth batch was ordered by the LNER in 1926. Another tank class, the
Caledonian Railway 944 Class Class designed by
William Pickersgill, appeared in 1917 with twelve locomotives built by
North British Locomotive Company. They were nicknamed the
Wemyss Bay Pugs since several of the class were allocated to do the
Glasgow to
Wemyss Bay suburban express work. In Scotland, all tank locomotives were called
Pugs, even large ones like this Caledonian Pacific class and the large
Glasgow and South Western Railway Baltic class. In 1921 and 1922,
Robert Urie of the
London and South Western Railway (LSWR) built five
H16 class locomotives for short-distance transfer freight trains in the London area. These survived in service until 1962.
United States 4-6-2 locomotive in 1993 4-6-2 No. 2223 stops in Carrington, N.D., in February 1948. , 2009 The 4-6-2 wheel arrangement was first used in the United States in 1886. This was an unusual double-cab or
Mother Hubbard type with an unusually large firebox, designed to use the waste tailings from
anthracite coal mines. While this design did not become popular, the 4-6-2 was rediscovered for the same reason, to improve the 4-6-0 Ten-wheeler with a larger firebox. With altogether 697 Pacific locomotives, the
Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) was the largest user of the type in the United States. The railroad bought its first experimental class from
ALCO in 1907. After testing, a further 257 Pacific locomotives in various versions, designated classes , , and , were built by the PRR at its
Altoona Works and by ALCO and
Baldwin between 1910 and 1913.
K4s In 1911, the PRR ordered an experimental
K-29 class from ALCO, with a larger boiler,
superheater,
mechanical stoker and other innovations. A similar
K4 class locomotive was built by the PRR in 1914, but no more were built until 1917. Between 1917 and 1928, the PRR built 349 K-4s locomotives and Baldwin a further 75, bringing the total of the K4s class to 425. Most of the United States railroads which offered passenger service, used Pacific types. Except for the custom design and sheer volume of units produced, the experience of railroads in the eastern and western United States was not dissimilar to that of the Pennsylvania and Santa Fe, respectively. Some roads developed these into the Hudson (or Baltic) type , others preferred the versatility of the Mountain and Northern types, and some, like the Santa Fe, bought both. One railroad, the St. Louis-San Francisco or
Frisco, actually converted a few existing Pacific types to Hudsons with larger fireboxes in their
Springfield shops. The Pacific type, however, was far and away the predominant passenger service steam engine in the United States until the end of steam. Lighter streamlined cars led to a resurgence of the light Pacific, with several railroads applying streamlined shrouds to older engines. The last Pacific built for service in the United States was delivered to the Reading in 1948. Most or all Pacifics were out of regular service by 1960. One notable , the
Soo Line 2719 which hauled the last of the
Soo Line Railroad's steam-powered trains in 1959, was preserved and was restored to operating condition for excursions. It is now on display at the
Lake Superior Railroad Museum in
Duluth, Minnesota. ==References==