0-8-0 Steam Locomotives in France

Class 4.2016 (Locobase 7592)

Data from a site that reproduces cigarette card pictures and adds dimension and area data -- [], last accessed 14 June 2006. Blanc-Misseron delivered works numbers 278-297 and 311-330 in 1930, 381-390 in 1931, and 392-401 in 1933. Corpet-Louvet produced works numbers 1762-1771 in 1930 and 1793-1802 in 1931-1932.

Locobase knows only what the photos tell it and they show a high-sided tank flanking the boiler from the cab front to the smokebox and the relatively rare choice of Gooch valve gear (that appears to be the Stephenson link motion outside).

Shunters like this didn't need the latest innovations to work satisfactorily. So the 4.2016 used slide valves, relatively simple valve gear, and negligible stream lining. The latter's low level is indicated by the massive side tanks, pipes everywhere, several items lining the top of the boiler. Heaps of coal rode in bunkers ahead and behind the cab.

All of the TGs headed for the ferro-knacker from 1960-1967,

Class 4.547 (Locobase 11282)

Data Maurice Demoulin, Traite Pratique de la Machine Locomotive (Paris: Libraire Polytechnique, Baudry et Cie, 1898), p.152.

Class 4.729 (Locobase 7416)

Data from Titre Exposition universelle internationale de 1889 a Paris. Rapports du jury internationale. Auteur - Volume France. Ministere du Commerce, de l'industrie. Picard, Alfred, ed. Volume Groupe VI - -Outillage et precedes des industries mecaniques. Electricite (5e partie) Classes 60 a 63. Rapport sur le materiel des chemins de fer.tables beginning on p. 183 ([] (accessed 1 September 2005)).

The Jury's report (157-158) notes that this exhibit was an existing eight-coupled locomotive that was converted to compound working using the Woolf four-cylinder tandem layout. The design was specifically designed to pull 600 tonnes up steep grades in the Nord's northeastern region. A later report showed that the compound could in fact pull 60 loaded cars amassing a total of 900 tons. Other trials yielded an 11-13% drop in coal consumption.

Each pair of cylinders -- 1 HP, 1 LP -- was arranged in tandem within a single assembly, the LP leading the HP. The relatively small Belpaire firebox changed the least du ring the conversion. Also the compounding ratio was relatively low.

Class 4.821 (Locobase 11158)

Data from "Locomotive Engines at the Paris Exhibition", The Artizan, Vol II, 4th Series, #2 (11 February 1868), p. 26. See also Maurice Demoulin, Traité pratique de la machine locomotive (in French). Volume 1. (Paris: Baudry et Cie, 1898).

Schneider Le Creusot produced by far the most in this first of two versions. Works numbers were 980-989 and 1000-1009 in 1866, 1027-1036 in 1867, 1398-1405, 1419-1425 in 1870-1871; 1469-1478, 1481-1489 in 1872-1873; 1535-1542, 1564-1573 in 1873, 1639-1658 in 1875.

Fives-Lille works numbers were built for Cail 1494-1517 in 1866.

Claparede & Cie manufactured works numbers 46-60 in 1872-1873.

Locobase 9951 describes the original Dromedaire that made its appearance at the 1862 Exhibition. This design appeared five years later at the 1867 edition. Among the several differences was the adoption of larger cyinders, larger-diameter firetubes, longer wheelbase, and provision of a smaller firebox. The second axle's wheels had no flanges.

In this group of engines, the steam dome hosted the regulator and the pipes passing steam to the steam chests on the cylinders descended within the boiler wrapper. See Locobase 11271 for a later configuration.

Class 4001, 4636 (Locobase 11271)

Data from Maurice Demoulin, Traite Pratique de la Machine Locomotive (Paris: Libraire Polytechnique, Baudry et Cie, 1898), pp. 127-130. Batignolles delivered 4.636-4.655 (works numbers 995-1014) in 1881.

Claparede (works numbers 167-196) produced the next 30 in the same year.

Fives-Lille manufactured four batches in 1880-1882 (works numbers were 2290-2304, 2318-2327 in 1880, 2350-2379 in 1881, 2380-2409 in 1882). In the same order, Nord engines numbers were 4.746-4.760, 4.761-4.770, 4.716-4.745, and 4.686-4.4.715. (NB: A Fives-Lille production list compiled by Hans Jurgen Wenzel and Brian Rumary shows the complicated result of later renumberings that created the 4.700 series shown here.)

Schneider-Le Creusot produced the last 30 4.700s in 1880 (works numbers 2021-2030, 2033-2042 in 1880, 2049-2058 in 1881).

Floridsdorf produced the first of the 4001s (works numbers were 318-342) followed by 20 from cross-town compatriot Wiener-Neustadt (works numbers 2494-2513), both in 1881. In 1890, Cail added 15 more (works numbers 2312-2336) and Batignolles completed the class with works numbers 1205-1219).

Nord aquired 170 engines primarily from Schneider-Le Creusot in a earlier version (Locobase 11258) that used a round Crampton boiler and firebox.

Beginning with the 4.636, Batignolles and others introduced a Belpaire firebox; its shape included rounded upper corners over the vertical side sheets. In the earlier 4800-4900s, all of the valve gear motion lay outside with the eccentric arms of the link in full view.

Demoulin noted that the top of the boiler held the steam dome with prominent safety valve, a separate regulator box, and a manifold that split the steam into pipes that descended the outside of the boiler to the top of the steam chest. He did not approve as he thought the Schneider design described in Locobase 11258 was "simpler and more rational."

The suspension applied different setups on different driving axles.The front and rear axles were independently sprung, the middle two worked together through an compensation beam connecting them.

1890 engines improved the footboard climate slightly by adding a short curved roof over the trainmen.

Demoulin reported main-line service between Lens and Paris in which coal trains weighing from 600 to 700 t averaged 31 kph (19.3 mph).

Class Ceinture (Locobase 15598)

Data from diagram No 49, Societe Alsacienne de Constructions Mecaniques from locomotive book supplied by Dany Machi up at [] as

Diagrammes des machines SACM construites a GRAFENSTADEN (October 2007).

These were transfer locomotives that operated on the Nord's Ceinture (belt) line around Paris. They had outside link motion with drive on the third axled, very little weather sheltering, long tanks extending to the smokebox front, dome over the second axle.

Class Dromadaire (Locobase 9951)

Data from D[avid] K[innear] Clark, "On the Locomotive Engines in the International Exhibition of 1862," Newton's London Journal of Arts, (1 January 1864), p. 34, supplemented and corrected by August Perdonnet et Camille Polonceau, Nouveau Portefeuille de L'Ingenieur des Chemins de Fer, Tome Second (Paris: Librairie Scientifique, Industrielle et Agricole, 1866), pp. 530-531. Works numbers were 456-470 in 1859, 525-536 in 1861, 606-613 in 1862.

This class of banking (helper) engines had its firebox above the driving axles and side frame to allow for the larger grate needed to burn the low-calorie "coal slack" that was its fuel. M. Jules Petiet, who designed this class, included a feature that represented one of the first attempts to wring the remaining water out of the steam produced in the boiler. Above the boiler was another steam space that contained 19 tubes of 3 1/8" diameter (and 128 sq ft of total surface area) that facilitated steam "drying".

Although a couple of dozen engines were built with this installation, its contribution to the steam's power didn't compensate for the added complexity.

See Locobase 11311 for the 1867 version of this design

Class Dromadaire (Type 54) (Locobase 11311)

Data from D[avid] K[innear] Clark, "On the Locomotive Engines in the International Exhibition of 1862," Newton's London Journal of Arts, (1 January 1864), p. 34, supplemented and corrected by August Perdonnet et Camille Polonceau, Nouveau Portefeuille de L'Ingenieur des Chemins de Fer, Tome Second (Paris: Librairie Scientifique, Industrielle et Agricole, 1866), pp. 530-531.

Compared to the first 11, one of which was shown at the 1862 Universal Exposition at Paris (Locobase 9951), this octet was a bit heavier, but not otherwise substantially different. In fact, this class had the same tube layout and the same square cylinder dimensions. It also mounted a second, smaller barrel containing a steam dryer above the main boiler.

See Locobase 11158 for a later version of this design.

Class Series 360 (Locobase 604)

Data from August Perdonnet, Traite Elementaird des Chemins de Fer, Tome Second (Paris: Garnier Freres, , 1860), pp. 587-592. See also Titre Rapports du jury mixte internationale publies sous la dir. de S.A.I le Prince Napoleon, presidente de la commission Imperial (Paris, Impremerie Imperiale, 1856) Collation [4]-LXXVI-1574-p. -[2]; Cote CNAM 8th Xae 53 - Mots mateiere Exposition internationale (1885; Paris); Industrie - 19e siecle; Produits industriels - 19e siecle, p. 233, hosted on cnum.cnam.fr/CGI/fpage.cgi?8XAE53/320/100/1664/0/0, accessed 1 September 2005; and Albert Jacquet, "'Engerth'" Locomotives on French and Belgian Railways", Locomotive Magazine, Volume XXVIII [28] (15 March 1922), pp. 74-77.

M. Pastor, Cockerill's director, designed this locomotive as an enlargement of the Engerth type that had proved successful in Switzerland and southern France. The tonnage target was 450 tonnes up a 1/2% grade. A 27 June 1855 test saw the locomotive complete a 28-km journey in 65 minutes (26 kph or 16 mph) pulling 482 tonnes.

For this effort and for the general quality of the design and construction, the Jury awarded "la grande medaille d'honneur".

If the Perdonnet data was correct, it exposed one of the significant drawbacks to involving the tender in providing adhesion weight. Apparently, it would have been difficult to place the firebox on rather than inside the frame rails, thus restricting width. And firebox length would be constrained by the need to provide the connector between the engine and the tender.

NB: Jacquet's data for tube heating surface used the internal tube diameter of 49 mm (1.93"), which yielded 187.75 sq m) (2,021 sq ft) and evaporative heatng surface of 198.6 sq m (2,137 sq ft). Locobase uses the external diameter given in the Jury report to simplify comparison with Anglo-American designs.