Articulated Steam Locomotives in China

Class 21 (Locobase 3561)

Data from "Twelve-wheel Mallet Compound Locomotive for North China", Railroad Age Gazette, Volume XLV, No 22 (30 October 1908), pp. 1250-1252. See also Julean Arnold, Commercial Handbook of China, Volume I, Miscellaneous Series-No 84 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1919).Works numbers were 18317-18319 in 1908.

Built in the first decade of the twentieth century, these were the very first Mallets to be built in England. No British railroads ever operated Mallets, but their builders were rather more Catholic in their abilities. This trio had slide valves on all four cylinders as opposed to the more usual setup of piston valves on the HP cylinders, slide valves on the LP cans.

These bankers were used to help trains scale the grade to the Nankou Pass enroute to Kalgan. The profile they traversed included 1 in 30 (3.3%) grades and curves of 500-ft radius. The line measured 124 miles (200 km) when it opened in 1909.

Class 71 (Locobase 12962)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Volume 36, p. 338 . Works numbers were 35037-35040 in August 1910.

This quartet replicated a logging Mallet design then being sold to several North American timber harvesters. Compared to the other articulateds that operated on this eastern Chinese line, they were quite a bit smaller.