Tongoi 2-6-0 Locomotives in Chile

Class Campanil (Locobase 20186)

Data from "Improved Narrow Gauge Locomotive", The Technologist, Volume II [2], No 2 (February 1871), pp. 32-33. See also "Ferrocarriles de Tongoy" in Wikipedia at [], last accessed 21 July 2022; and Martin Coombs, Chilean Steam Locomotives, Part 2 Intermediate Gauges- V2.49 June 2022, archived on [], last accessed 21 July 2022, p. 76-77; and

"El ferrocarril de la red del Norte-Lfnea Tongoy - Tamaya - Ovalle" at [], last accessed 21 July 2020. Works numbers were 1717 in March 1870 and 1770 in August.

The second of these little tanks was named Pizarro. Wikipedia reproduced a Rogers builder's illustration of the first engine that showed a little engine with tall water tanks and the name "Campanil" in a huge font on the tank. Its Italianate cab window arrangement showed tall side windows and four smaller windows in the cab front. Also typical of the time was the large oil-burning headlight hanging over the two candelabra-like staffs mounted on the front buffer beam. On the boiler sat ornate domes for sand and steam spaced over the front and center drivers respectively. The steam dome's safety valve top almost as high off the rails as the stack cap.

The FC de Tongoy was originally established to bring copper ore from the Minas de Tamaya to the port of Tongoy. Opened in 1867, the 36 km (23.4 miles) to Trapiche and the 17 km (10,6 miles) branch to Tamaya--a line ruled by a 5% gradient--soon began carrying the mine's product and three years later, the six original locomotives were joined by the Campanil and Pizarro.

By 1879, ore trafic reached 210,000 kg (230 short tons) per year, but the Cerro de Tamaya was soon facing exhaustion with ore amounts dropping to 90,000 kg (99 tons) seven years later in 1886 and 8,487 kg (9.75 tons) in 1891. But the railway still offered utility enough to merit an extension further inland to Puntilla, which lay 85 km (53 miles) from Tongoy.

That project included a gauge reduction in 1910 to one metre (39.4"). If nothing else had, that change probably spelled doom for the 40-year-old engines.