Etat 4-6-0 Locomotives in France

Class 230-371 (Locobase 20143)

Data from "New Locomotives for the French State Railways, Locomotive Magazine, Volume 19 (15 February 1913) p. 30 .

Locobase 5319 shows the twenty express passenger, four-cylinder simple expansion locomotives produced for the Etat by the SACM in 1912. The 15 engines in the present engty served as mixed-traffic (i.e., passenger and fast freight) locomotives. According to the LM report, the two locomotives differed only in the driver diameter and the length of the superheater elements.

Relatively unsung as far as Locobase can tell, the engines nevertheless remained in service into the late 1950s. They were retired in 1957.

Class 230B (Locobase 5323)

Data from a table published in Railway Mechanical Engineer (RME) in May 1916 after the class was superheated. The table did not make it clear which class this entry might represent. The similarities between this class and the Etats described in the same Edouard Sauvage article were striking, especially the identical grate area and the tube and flue sizes, but Locobase couldn't determine if there was a connection.

A visit to a vintage rail site -- [] -- on 26 Nov 2004 gave the answer. Luc Fournier commentary says that the Midi was the first French railway to purchase this du Bosquet-de Glehn compound design and that it was very similar to the Ouest/Etats of the 100 series. But see Locobase 6061 to see the Ouest history. For some reason, the Etats acquired the nickname"Fallieres"which was the name of the president of France at the time.

Class Joconde / 230 J, 230 L (Locobase 5319)

Data from "Four-Cylinder Simple Superheater Locomotives, French State Railways", Locomotive Magazine, Volume XVIII [18] (14 December 1912), pp. 251-252; some corrections in "New Locomotives for the French State Railways, LM, Volume 19 (15 February 1913) p. 29 . See also a table published in Railway Mechanical Engineer (RME) in May 1916. Info published on [] (visited November 2002) by Roland Arzul illustrates a class of Etat ten-wheelers with several photos of the 230.781 - 230.800 class.

Unusual for French express Ten-wheelers of the era in having four simple-expansion cylinders arranged in line abreast. The inside pair of cylinders drove the leading axle, the outer pair turned the middle axle. The outside valves were linked to the inner ones through rocking levers off the radial valve gear. (Fifteen more locomotives powered by two larger-diameter cylinders and rolling on smaller drivers appear in Locobase 20143.)

They entered service pulling the boat trains between Cherbourg and Paris and Dieppe and Paris. Arzul comments that these locomotives had an excellent reputation and were nicknamed the "Mona Lisa" or in French "Joconde". In 1936, they were overhauled with a resulting increase in boiler pressure. This permitted pulling 300-ton trains at 120 km/h (75 mph).

230.800 received a streamlining treatment that gave it a beak resembling that of a puffin.