Aden Railway 4-6-0 Locomotives in Aden

Class 1 (Locobase 14421)

Data from "Rolling Stock for the Aden Railway", Locomotive Magazine, Volume 34, No. 426 (15 February 1928), pp. 42-43; "Railways of Aden" in [], an Israeli railway magazine that focuses on the Middle East; original article cite was Robert Mumford, "Indian Outpost in Arabia", Railway Magazine (February 1976), pp. 73-75.

When Aden was a British protectorate at the very southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, the colony built a 29-mile (46.7 km), single track, metre-gauge railway. "[I]nitially," says Mumford, " it was used for supplying the British forces fighting against the Turks [in World War One]."

LM's report focused on water supply, beginning with the general observation tthat "Fresh water is scarce in Aden, being obtained chiefly by condensation ...Much of the water used by the locomotives is taken from a small river near Lahej." What water there was was stored in ancient storage reservoirs as well as wells further away from Aden and "delivered through an aqueduct seven miles long." Moreover, all foodstuffs had to be imported.

Because Aden was grouped with rest of Britain's Indian Empire, it was stocked with Anglo-British locomotive designs. Three East Bengal Railway 0-6-0s and three F1 0-6-0s from the Bombay, Baroda & Central stocked the AR.

The oil-burning Ten-wheeler outlined here was based on the Indian State Railways standard metre-gauge 4-6-0 and was the first of seven locomotives of all types on the AR. It used Holden's system of oil-burning in a Belpaire firebox.

Plans to extend the railway another 25 miles(40 km) to the protectorate's frontier never bore fruit Although busy during its heyday, the AR operated for only 13 years before being closed in 1929 for economic reasons.

A letter from Hugh Hughes in reply to the Mumford account (and reproduced in harakevet) clarifies and corrects the earlier story. Hughes reported that the 1 made its way back to India after the AR's closing and served the Eastern Bengal as their 325 from 1931 on. A change of flag occurred during the 1947 Partition of India when Bengal was taken into East Pakistan. East Pakistan's independence secured in 1971, its railway still operated the 325 in 1973.