Paracatu 4-6-0 Locomotives in Brazil

Class 4 (Locobase 15393)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Vol 78, pp. 233+. See also the Centro-Oeste website's entry on the Paracatu at [], last accessed 31 August 2013. Works numbers were 59002-59005 in January 1926.

A few months after ordering the pair of relatively large superheated Mikados shown in Locobase 15394, the EF de Paracatu added four much small wood-burning Ten-wheelers to haul passenger trains on the 45 lb/yard (22.5 kg/metre) rail, scale moderate 2 1/2% grades, and get around curve radii of 80 metres (263 feet).

The Paracatu's slow northwesterly progress toward its namesake city reached Melo Viana, 154 km (95.6 miles) from Taipa in 1927. But it would be another decade before the last 19 km (11.8 miles) to Barra do Funchal would open in 1937. In the meantime, the line had been built 57 km (35.4 miles) in the opposite direction from Taipa to reach -gua Suja on the eastern bank of the River Para. But lack of a bridge kept the line from linking to Belo Horizonte, its goal in that direction.

In 1931, the EF Paracatu was redubbed a "Ramal" (line or extension) of the new Rede Mineira de Viatpo (RMV), a consortium of railways (Oeste de Minas, Goias, and Paracatu) that supported mining in Goias.