Suomen valtionrautatiet 4-6-4 Locomotives in Finland

Class Pr2 - Henskeli (Locobase 5645)

Data from Markku Karvonen's personal.inet.fi/koti/markku.karvonen/prk/vanha3.htm (visited 29 March 2003).

Karvonen wrote that these oil-burning passenger tanks were displaced engines, products of bad timing when they were ordered by the Estonian Railways in 1939. As Estonia. Lithuania, and Latvia soon came under Soviet rule, the Henskeli had no buyer. Once the Nazi invasion of Russia sent troops into the three former democracies, the Germans operated them in Latvia.

Finland bought them from the Germans to use them in local traffic in the vicinity of Helsinki. At that point, the VR converted the engines to buring coal. After World War II ended, the Pr2s extended their useful life after being converted back to oil burning in 1947.(They would revert to coal burning in 1952-1964. They may the only steam engines to change their fuel source four times.)

Karvonen wrote that as powerful as they were, the class wasn't "completely successful." And the shortcomings proved serious. As the Google translation says: "The large boiler at the front and the heavy fuel tank at the back caused resonance phenomena." Combining with a weak suspension and poorly baffled water tanks which moved their water "in waves at high speed dangerously [shaking]the entire locomotive."

But what made the drivers begin to "fear the whole type" was a 1950 boiler explosion in 1802 caused by a "German-type water glass." The Pr2s were withdrawn in 1960 and retired in 1964.

The last one was retired in 1964.