New South Wales 2-4-0 Locomotives in Australia

Class F 351/X10 (Locobase 2399)

Data from John Forsythe (Archive Officer, Transport House), Steam Locomotive Data, Public Transport Commission of NSW [New South Wales], July 1974, p. 78, archived at [], last accessed 12 March 2015. (Many thanks to Brett Fitzpatrick for his 11March 2015 email supplying the link to the CoalsToNewcastle website.). Beyer, Peacock works numbers were 2657-2668 in 1885.

Based on an Isle of Wight design, these small tanks were bought for suburban passenger traffic, but an accident persuaded management that they wouldn't do for that service. Even so, many were kept for other service, each amassing several hundred thousand miles before scrapping.

Ten survivors were reclassified X10 in 1924.

Class G/Z14 (Locobase 1085)

Data from The Richmond-Kurrajong website, [], last accessed 30 August 2009 and Leon Oberg's Locomotives of Australia 1854-2007, pp. 29-30. John Forsythe (Archive Officer, Transport House), Steam Locomotive Data, Public Transport Commission of NSW [New South Wales], July 1974, p. 78, archived at [], last accessed 12 March 2015. (Many thanks to Brett Fitzpatrick for his 11March 2015 email supplying the link to the CoalsToNewcastle website.) See also/Beyer works numbers 443-451, delivered in 1865.

Same basic dimensions as 0-6-0, but used in passenger service. Oberg says that purchase of this design was a response to the greater demands of both the main system in the south and the isolated northern section between Newcastle and Singleton. Also, destinations such as Goulburn, Murrurundi, and Bathhurst lay over the Blue Mountains.

There's much to be said for basing a design on a successful locomotive -- in this case those of the London Metropolitan, which were reported to be reliable and free-steaming. But the earlier locomotives struggled on the 1 in 30 (3.3% grade) between Picton and Mittagong and the last four were delivered with 66" drivers for more tractive effort.

Withdrawn after more powerful locomotives came along, the class lay idle for 10 years before being rebuilt as 4-4-0 engines for branch-line operation and redignated Z-14. Thus they became the 1400-class engines with 140-psi boilers and Belpaire fireboxes. The lead bogie had closely spaced axles and inclined cylinders that aged its look to Victorian times, an image strengthened by the plate-framed, 3-axle tender.

Four were scrapped in the 1920s, but other soldiered on for decades with 1405 taking the palm for distance traveled (1,159,550 miles) before being withdrawn and scrapped in 1952.