New South Wales 2-6-4 Locomotives in Australia

Class A/E, E-10/Z20 (Locobase 2404)

Data from [], last accessed 4 December 2011. See also the New South Wales Rail Transport Museum website at [], and John Forsythe (Archive Officer, Transport House), Steam Locomotive Data, Public Transport Commission of NSW [New South Wales], July 1974, p. 75, archived at [], last accessed 12 March 2015. (Many thanks to Brett Fitzpatrick for his 11 March 2015 email supplying the link to the CoalsToNewcastle website.)

One of two wheel arrangements on the same boiler, the other (Z19) being an 0-6-0 tender engine (Locobase 2403). The first of the E 10s were ordered in 1890 to bolster coal-traffic movement in Newcastle (a good example of the limitations in the old expression about redundant activity). Beyer Peacock shipped ten while Henry Vale built two more in Australia.

Like the A(93)s, these had Belpaire fireboxes and many of the engine's components were designed to be interchangeable with the all-adhesion six-coupleds. But adopting a Bissel truck meant that the unusually wide spacing between the first two axles could be reduced by 10 inches (254 mm) by moving the first driven axle that much farther back.

The engines were as useful as their A(93) kin and prompted conversions of six A(93)s in 1902 (as A/E) and eight more in 1908-1910. NSW shops turned out seven new engines to the same design in 1911.

As coal traffic demanded still more pull from its motive power, these tanks were eventually relegated to branch-line traffic over lightly built rails and around tight curves. According to the NSWRTM, these suburban passenger lines included Carlingford, Camden, Kurrajong and Morpeth.

According to [], some of these were converted to tender engines after 1924, but doesn't say what the arrangement was.