Eritrean Railway Articulated Locomotives in Ethiopia

Class 440 (Locobase 5016)

See http://www . trainweb.org/eritrean/scrapbook for much information and many pictures of Eritrean steam. Data taken from November 1969 Trains article reproduced on that site. See also "Some Itlaina Locomotives at the Turin Exhibition", The Locomotive, Volume XVII (15 November 1911), 247.

The Eritrean Railway, which ran from the port of Massawa up the escarpment, used many 4-coupled Mallet tank designs beginning with this class; this first batch had slide valves supplying the low-pressure cylinders. They remained in service well into the 1960s.

According to Charles Small, writing in Far Wheels (1986) and quoted at [] (7 March 2004) , the railway had a get-down-on-your-hands-and-knees profile: "The two saturated steam R440 class Mallets have a tonnage limit of 126 metric tons, each, to Mai Atal where this photo was taken. To Ghinda it is 81 tons each, and to the summit just before Asmara, it is 71 tons. The summit grade is 3.5%. The altitude is 7303 feet above and 73.09 miles beyond the shore of the Red Sea ....From Ghinda to Asmara the grade is a steady 3.5 per cent uncompensated for the z 3 o foot radius curves ...The older 0-4-4-0 tank engines can only drag fifty-five tons up the incline."

Class 441 (Locobase 5017)

Data from [] (7 March 2004. Works numbers were 1363, 1367, 1369-1370 in 1938.

The Eritrean Railway quickly found its 440 class four-coupled Mallet tank (Locobase 5016) was too small and upgraded with this design, which was delivered in three batches. Several of these later were sent to Libya. Charles Small, writing in Far Wheels (1986) and quoted at the web site shown above, said that these locomotives had tonnage ratings of 120% compared to the earlier 440 class.

The locomotives were delivered as four-cylinder, simple-expansion engines. (330 x 500 mm/13" x 19.69"), most with Walschaert gear and piston valves on all four cylinders, but a few with Caprotti valve gear. Survivors were later converted to compound working. Four were superheated in 1939-1940 (001, 003, 007, 008) and renumbered 104, 106, 110, 111. Italy was defeated by the British in 1941 before the other locomotives could be similarly reconstructed.

See http://www . trainweb.org/eritrean/scrapbook for much information and many pictures of Eritrean steam. Data taken from November 1969 Trains article reproduced on that site.

Class 442 (Locobase 5018)

See http://www . trainweb.org/eritrean/scrapbook for much information and many pictures of Eritrean steam. Data taken from November 1969 Trains article reproduced on that site.

The Eritrean Railway's last four-coupled Mallet tanks were these, which were similar to the 441 but heavier. They remained in service well into the 1990s.According to Charles Small, writing in Far Wheels (1986) and quoted at [] (7 March 2004), this last group had tonnage ratings 150% higher than those of the 440 class.