South Australian Railways 4-8-0 Locomotives in Australia

Class T (Locobase 20889)

Data from D[ennis] Rock Carling, 4-8-0 Tender Locomotives (New York: Drake Publishers, Inc, 1972), p. 81 and serial 39 on table XIV [14], pp.108-109; and South Australian Railways T class" in Wikipedia at [], last accessed 12 May 2021.

Pocket-sized heavy goods engine for use on light, narrow-gauge rail. Designed by TS Roberts and built at Walkers Ltd (Maryborough) -- 40 -- James Martin & Co. at Gawler (34), and at the Islington shops (40) in 1904-1917. Carling explained that the Ts were built to haul the ore traffic coming from the Broken Hill mines between Terowie and Peterborough and Port Pirie and Cockburn and were rated at 525 tons up a 1 in 75 (1.33%) grades. SAR later used them on several other Cape Gauge lines which included, according to Wikipedia, "the isolated Eyre Peninsula Railway" not linked to the rest of the rail network.

Carling wrote that the low factor of adhesion was addressed in some of the engines by adding 3-5 long tons (6,720-11,200 lb/3,048-5,080 kg) in ballast.

Not long after the last of the 78 Ts had been delivered, the SAR decided they were over-endowed in 4-8-0s and sold six (219, 222, 223, 230, 235 & 237) to the Tasmanian Government Railway. They served the TGR until 1957-1961. Islington converted five others to the SAR's broad gauge to operate on the Murraylands branch in 1922-1923. (A 21" increase in gauge reflected the value of six axles for spreading the load on relatively light rail.)

All 67 remaining locomotives were updated with superheaters; see Locobase 2427.

Four moved into the Commonwealth Railways stud (46, 50, 218, 256) during World War II as Class NMA, but subsequently returned.

Class T - superheated (Locobase 2427)

Data from D[ennis] Rock Carling, 4-8-0 Tender Locomotives (New York: Drake Publishers, Inc, 1972), p. 81 and serial 39 on table XIV [14], pp.108-109; and South Australian Railways T class" in Wikipedia at [], last accessed 12 May 2021. See also " Collections at the National Railway Museum-Locomotive T253" on the National Railway Museum website at [], last accessed 12 May 2021.

Locobase 80885 describes the original saturated-boiler T class engines that arrived on the SAR between 1904-1917. Beginning in 1925, the Islington shops installed superheaters on 67 of the class.

The NRM records a typical result of operating for decades on a railway: "By the 1950s the engines were looking very different from those that had emerged from the builders in the first two decades of the 20th Century. Large headlights had been added, the smokebox had been twice extended - the second time to incorporate a Cyclone spark arrestor - and the tender enlarged. By the end of their lives the tenders had become rather ungainly and towered above the engines, particularly on those engines which had been converted to burn oil, and an additional tank installed."