Western Australian Government 4-6-4 Locomotives in Australia

Class Ut (Locobase 7494)

Data from [], which reproduced an item from the January 1958 Railway Transportation.

The UT is a conversion of the Class U Pacific, a class originally built for operations in the Sudan (see Locobase 4486) and supplied to the WAGR in 1946-1947. For the latter, the locomotives were converted to oil-burning. The UT's boiler and running gear were essentially unchanged, the changes being concentrated in crafting a fixed oil-fuel bunker, side tanks that ran from cab to smokebox, and a 4-wheel trailing truck.

At the time of writing, the 1958 correspondent claimed that the engine accelerated "smartly" and kept suburban railcar schedules easily, including the taxing Perth to Fremantle, a 14-stop run over 11 miles covered in 34 minutes. Consumption when hauling a 4-car, 74-ton train amounted to 36 Imp gallons of water and 4.25 Imp gallons of oil per mile. Given that the goal was two round trips without refuelling or watering, the 50-mile water range was sufficient.

On the other hand, the rail heritage Museum of Western Australia ([], accessed 17 April 2007) notes that while "[t]he Ut locomotive was able to easily keep to the railcar schedule[,] [f]urther conversions were not undertaken due to the high running costs. The Ut was used intermittently until withdrawn in 1970"