Gold Coast 4-8-0 Locomotives in Ghana

Class 153 (Locobase 20053)

Data from "Eight-coupled Locomotive, Gold Coast Government Railway", Locomotive Magazine, Volume 18 (14 December 1912), pp. 256-257. See also "The Gold Coast: A Railway Through the African Jungle", reprinted at the Railway Wonders of the World (formerly Mike's Railway History) website, at [], last accessed 9 February 2018. Works numbers were 1060-1061 in 1911.

This pair was the only Hunslet-built contribution to the GCR's stud of ten Twelve-wheelers delivered between 1909 and 1915. The other eight came from Hawthorn and were likely identical. Locobase notes, however, that LM report described the boiler as having a Belpaire firebox and extended smokebox, but the accompanying photo supplied by Hunslet shows a round-top boiler with no shoulders.

The Gold Coast began construction of its railway inland from Sekondi in 1898 and completed 168 miles (270 km) through to Ashanti by March 1904 and later to Kumasi,. The Kumasi-Accra link opened much later in 1923, completing a triangular trunk line of 362 miles (583 km). Laid with 50 lb/yard (25 kg/metre) rails, the line was described as "gently undulating", but its ruling grade was 1 in 45 (2.2%). Branch lines such as Prestea-Broomassie (19 miles/30.6 km) and Accra-Manguassi (40 miles/64.4 km) used 45 lb/yard (22.5 kg/metre) rails.

Class unknown (Locobase 20848)

Data from D[ennis] Rock Carling, 4-8-0 Tender Engines (New York: Drake Publishers, Inc, 1972), pp. 65 and serial 167, Table X [10] B, pp.104-105.

Carling wrote that these Gold Coast Twelve-wheelers were "very much like the [Cape Railways] 7th class."

They worked a 25-year career, "mainly on the Sekondi-Kumasi line", until before their withdrawals in 1934-1938