Egyptian State 0-6-0 Locomotives in Egypt

Class 145/114 (Locobase 10416)

Data from "The Egyptian Government Railways and Locomotives," The Locomotive Magazine, Volume IX (5 December 1903), p. 324. Works numbers included 1637-1644, 1701-1720, 1751-1764. (Road numbers were 145, 144, 153, 152, 150-51, 160, 159 n 1865; 148-149, 158, 173-181, 182-189, 191, 191, 113, 193-195 in 1866-1867.)

A numerically large class of goods engines, the 145s had heavy outside frames, inside cylinders, and a dome ornately capped with a pickelhauben-style cap. Most were later completely rebuilt with 17" x 24" cylinders and a new boiler; only the frame remained essentially untouched.

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Class 156/202 (Locobase 10451)

Data from "The Egyptian Government Railways and Locomotives," The Locomotive Magazine, Volume X (14 May 1904), p. 76. Works numbers included 1765-1786, 1788-1797, 1940.

A builder's list prepared by Dipl.Ing.(a title like "PhD") Schmeiser of Wiener-Neustadt was supplied by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange collection. His tabulation showed original road numbers in order of works numbers as 204-205, 202-203, 198-199, 206-229, 230-239. LM's tabulation apparently referred only to those that remained in service when the article was prepared.

Succeeding the numerous 114 class in production, this class introduced larger cylinders (by increasing the diameter by an inch) and a boiler of different design that was somewhat smaller, but mated to a larger grate. Also, the engines came fitted with a full cab, safety-valve stand over the firebox, and smaller dome.

When they entered service, the class was painted a bright green, which undoubtledly lent some visual interest to the heavy goods trains they hauled between Alexandria and Cairo. LM added that the class never received a new paint job, so by the 1890s the color scheme had turned black. All were substantially rebuilt in the late 1890s and early 1900s.

See the above article for a revealing extended discussion of the incomprehension of Egyptian authorities for the need to maintain a locomotive, and, particularly, their reported willingness to dispatch a locomotive despite defects. It's written from the supercilious and condescending, yet soberly technical, English point of view with no expectation of rebuttal.

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Class 189 (Locobase 10365)

Data from "The Egyptian Government Railways and Locomotives," The Locomotive Magazine, Vol IX (12 September 1903), p. 156. Boiler pressure is an estimate. Works numbers were 108-109.

These were two of them and they arrived with heavy outside plate frames, dome over the firebox, and thick smokebox. One was named after the then-Viceroy, Mohammed Said.

In 1885, F H Trevithick, long-time locomotive superintendent of the EGR, chose this pair as his first rebuilding project. They received boilers with the dome positioned in the center of the barrel.

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Class 225 (Locobase 10397)

Data from "The Egyptian Government Railways and Locomotives," The Locomotive Magazine, Vol IX (7 November 1903), p. 267.

Based on the French Bourbonnais type (Locobase 6167), the first three of this design were supplied by Koechlin & Co of Mulhouse. They bore the PLM's road number 1629-1631, but went straight from the works to Egypt. Fifteen Schneider-built locomotives intended for the PLM (road numbers 1716-1730) filled out the class. j

"They were excellent engines," says the LM author, "both as regards design and workmanship, and certainly the most powerful engines as a class which the Egyptian Railways possessed until recently."

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Class 244 (Locobase 10398)

Data from "The Egyptian Government Railways and Locomotives," The Locomotive Magazine, Volume IX [9] (7 November 1903), p. 267.

Very similar in size to the 225s in Egyptian service (Locobase 10397), these were originally built for the French CF de Ouest. They had no domes - instead a simple, small regulator box gathered the steam. Pipes leading from the box fed the steam chests on top of the cylinders.

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Class Class 17 (Locobase 10362)

Data from "Six-Coupled Goods Locomotive, Egyptian State Rys," The Locomotive Magazine, Vol IX (5 September 1903), p. 147. See also E L Ahrons, "Thirty Years of Locomotive Progress in Egypt", Engineer, Volume 118 (27 November 1914), pp 499-501.

Thick outside frames characterized this class of stubby goods engines supplied by the former Schwarzkopff works, recently renamed Berliner Maschinenbau (5) and a later batch of 19 supplied by a Belgian builder., Societe Franco-Belge of La Groyere. Saluting Frederick Harvey Trevithick, the author commented that the design showed "...that the locomotive stock of this railway system is being kept well abreast of modern practice by the capable British engineer-in-charge."

Ahrons's table showed that the class used one of two tenders. The larger-capacity tender that weighed more was used by nine of the class and appears in the specifications. The smaller tender weight 65,156 lb (29,554 kg) when loaded, the weight including 2,160 US gallons (8,176 litres) of water.

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Class Class 21 (Locobase 20264)

Data from E L Ahrons, "Thirty Years of Locomotive Progress in Egypt", Engineer, Volume 118 (27 November 1914), pp 499-501; and E L Ahrons, "Locomotives of the Egyptian State Railways", Locomotive Magazine, Volume 23 (15 August 1917), pp. 165-167. North British provided the first fifteen with Franco-Belge of La Croyere in Belgium adding the last ten.

This class displayed the heavy double frame, which provided two driving boxes for each wheel; the three axles were connected outside, but valve gear operated inside.

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Class Class 22 (Locobase 20265)

Data from E L Ahrons, "Thirty Years of Locomotive Progress in Egypt", Engineer, Volume 118 (27 November 1914), pp 499-501; and E L Ahrons, "Locomotives of the Egyptian State Railways", Locomotive Magazine, Volume 23 (15 August 1917), pp. 165-167

These goods locomotives continued the basic design of the ERA's 0-6-0, but increasing the firebox and adding more tubes to increase heating surface area. They also had extended smokeboxes on an otherwise unchanged double-framed layout.

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Class Class 23 (Locobase 20277)

Data from E L Ahrons, "Thirty Years of Locomotive Progress in Egypt", Engineer, Volume 118 (27 November 1914), pp 499-501.

This was one of several trial designs for passenger locomotive on the ESR. Ahrons commented that this engine was "probably unique as to the size of the wheels for a double-frame locomotive."

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Class Class 30 (Locobase 20278)

Data from E L Ahrons, "Thirty Years of Locomotive Progress in Egypt", Engineer, Volume 118 (27 November 1914), pp 499-501; and E L Ahrons, "Locomotives of the Egyptian State Railways", Locomotive Magazine, Volume 23 (15 August 1917), pp. 165-167

Ahrons described this "exceedingly heavy" class of six-coupled goods locomotives and able to be ranked "amongst the largest engines of this type at work anywhere." In addition to introducing the first single inside frames on the ESR since two Beyer, Peacock locomotives of 1857, the class also used an radial valve gear carried inside and a "extremely large" and quite deep Belpaire firebox. The boiler was pitched quite high, leaving a sizable gap between the bottom of the vessel and the engine's running gear.

In heavy goods service, a Class 30 averaged 62-66 lb of coal per mile (17.5-18.6 kg/km).

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Class Class 4 (Locobase 10467)

Data from E L Ahrons, "Thirty Years of Locomotive Progress in Egypt", Engineer, Volume 118 (27 November 1914), pp 499-501. See also "English and American Locomotives", Indian Engineering, Volume 31 (28 June 1902), pp 412-413.

Francis Trevithick generated a deluge of orders once the ERA acquired enough capital in the 1880s to upgrade its rapidly aging fleet. One way of saving on maintenance, was to use the same boiler, motion, and cylinders in all of the engines: Twelve Singles (Locobase 10456), 64 2-4-0s (Locobase 10466), and this large class of goods locomotives. All of these had double frames and were, said Ahrons, "characterised by their extreme simplicity and neatness, and bore a strong resemblance to the former Great Western engines in style, with copper-topped chimneys and polished brass domes.

This class represented something of an emergency order when the EGR discovered its large order for 0-6-0 goods engines (Locobase 10492) wouldn't be filled in time to handle the large sugar and cotton harvests that were increasingly the norm. So the board ordered these batches from Baldwin for a cost of $9,000 each, the first of which were delivered in June 1898. (That the US was then at war with Spain doesn't appear to have impeded the flow of this commerce at all.)

In 1902, IE presented an overview of Francis Trevithick's most assuredly unbiased report by its editor, Patrick Doyle, comparing Baldwin-supplied Moguls described in Locobase 10491 with these goods locomotives of roughly equal size and power . Trials of locomotives from "each country" (more about that later) consisted of eight runs and Doyle positively crowed: "It is not too much to say that as regards these particular locomotives the results are absolutely conclusive ...the superiority of the British engines is nothing less than startling."

The data from the eight runs show the difference. Coal consumption in the Baldwins averaged 62 lb per mile (17.47 kg/km) vs the 49.4 lb (13.92 kg/km) of the 0-6-0s; average weight of water evaporated per pound of coal burned was 7.78 lb vs 9.1.

Doyle stabs more deeply into the offensive American carcass: "The point to keep in view is that these engines, though perhaps not representative of the engines made in America for American railways, were designed and manufactured for use abroad in competition with those of other countries, under conditions equally known to all the competing firms; and besides this, that while others were bound by designs and specifications the Americans were not. The engines supplied may therefore be taken as typical of what may be expected by other foreign or colonial buyers, ordering under similar conditions."

His case was admittedly bolstered by similar results in a comparison of Midland and Great Northern Railway goods engines and US-built Moguls (Locobases 2656, 8971 and 9510) in the same period. But Locobase (a confessed North American) feels a compulsion to point out that less than 1/5 of the locomotives in the class were British--the rest were Belgian. Could we be witnessing the triumph of Belgian manufacturing techniques? Moreover, eight runs doesn't seem a large sample size.

Still, it is only right in this entry that we give Doyle the last word. Nettled by press accounts that suggested American locomotive performance represented a qualitative edge over British craftsmanship, the IE editor rejoined:

"We have been told that the British maker was an old-fashioned, slow-going person, of fixed habits, who clung to his worn-out lathes with an almost pathetic tenacity, and refused to listen to the man with the newest machine tool to sell, charm he never so wisely. We have heard that English workshops and railways were managed on obsolete lines, with no regard to modern "improvements, " and were treated more as toys than as business undertakings. We have here one answer, though not a new one, to these advisers; that though we may go rather more slowly than pushing neighbours, we "get there " none the less surely in the end."

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Class Class 5 (Locobase 20260)

Data from E L Ahrons, "Thirty Years of Locomotive Progress in Egypt", Engineer, Volume 118 (27 November 1914), pp 499-501. Ahrons notes the builder was Belgian, but doesn't further identify.

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Class Class 8 (Locobase 10492)

Data from "The Egyptian Government Railways and Locomotives," The Locomotive Magazine, Volume XI [11] (15 February 1905), p. 33.

This class of goods engines built on the earlier 252 design, but enlarged it by increasing the cylinders by 1/2" (12.7 mm). Also, the new design had a raised firebox. Suppliers of this class in 1898-1899 ranged from Marcinelle et Couillet, which delivered the first 15; Neilson, Reid & Co, the next 10; Societe Haine St Pierre (10); and Societe La Meuse (10). Franco Belge added 10 more later.

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Class Mammoth (Locobase 10363)

Data from "The Egyptian Government Railways and Locomotives," The Locomotive Magazine, Vol IX (12 September 1903), p. 155. Boiler pressure is an estimate.

Derived from the French "Mammouth" type of all-adhesion goods locomotives, this class showed the steam dome well forward and closed by a prominent cap, heavy plate frame, and stubby safety valve stand over the firebox.

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Class unknown (Locobase 10366)

Data from "The Egyptian Government Railways and Locomotives," The Locomotive Magazine, Vol IX (12 September 1903), p. 156. Boiler pressure is an estimate. Works numbers were 1293-1294.

Long-stroke locomotives enjoyed periodic vogues in certain wheel arrangements and these were among the first to adopt a 28" stroke. They also had an unusually uneven spacing between axles with the 10 ft 1 1/4 inch distance between the 2nd and 3rd axles just about 3 ft greater than the 7 ft 2 inch spacing between the lead and center axles.

Both were scrapped in 1890.

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Class unknown (Locobase 10367)

Data from "The Egyptian Government Railways and Locomotives," The Locomotive Magazine, Vol IX (12 September 1903), p. 156. Boiler pressure is an estimate. Works numbers were 1293-1294.

According to the history cited above, the Viceroy of Egypt, Said Pasha, saw Matthew Kirtley's goods locomotive at the 1862 Great Exhibition in London and soon had acquired 3 for EGR service. It was part of a pattern of procurement, says the author, typical of His Highness. "His fancies ...combined occidental utility with a maximum of oriental magnificence of 'get up'".