Antofagasta 4-2-4-2 Locomotives in Chile

Class Chile (Locobase 20817)

Data from Martin Coombs, Chilean steam locomotive list-Part 4-Sub-metric gauge locos (November 2019) at [], last accessed 29 November 2020. Works numbers were 2449 in 1887 and 2450 in 1888.

Webb's compounds--two HP, 1 LP-, proportioned to have relatively low compounding ratios- were mostly confined to the London & North Western.Railway in England. But this pair strayed way off the reservation, bringing with them the typical Webb divided-drive in a novel layout. Three of the six axles carried 36" wheels--these were the drivers, subdivided into a single axle under the dome and ahead of a coupled pair of axles. The leading bogie and the rearmost truck under the bunker behind the cab measured 24" in diameter. The two outside HP cylinders drove on the rear coupled axle while the inside LP cylinder turned the crank on the single uncoupled axle.

Coombs's epic compilation of all Chilean steam locomotives necessarily confronts vague and incomplete information, so he cannot be sure of some of it. But the diagram he reproduces from Turner & Ellis's FCAB book presents the data Locobase has used. Citing Isaac Arce (Narraciones Historicas de Antofagasta, by Isaac Arce, 1930, Capftulo XIII. Ferrocarril del Antofagasta al Salar del Carmen - su prolongacion a la interior), Coombs concludes that Arce's reference to two locomotives named Bolivia and Chile may have identified this pair.

Both were later converted to 4-6-0s and, though Coombs doesn't say so explicitly, converted to simple expansion.