Matheran Railway 0-6-0 Locomotives in India

Class MLR (Locobase 10613)

Data from "Matheran Railway ", The Locomotive Magazine, Vol XIII (15 March 1907), p. 48. Works numbers were 1766-1767 (1, 4 in 1905), 2342-2343 (2-3 in 1907).

As the LM report explained in 1907, each large population center in India had a "hill station", a location considerably higher in elevation to which people could retire to escape the heat and congestion of the lowlands. Two Bombay notables -- Abdul Hussein Adamji Peerbhoy and Rai Saheb Harichand -- decided to build a 13-mile narrow-gauge railway from Neral, a Great Indian Peninsula Railway station at 132 ft above sea level, to the Matheran terminus at 2, 495 ft ASL.

A simple calculation of the average rise per mile -- 3.4% -- indicates just how steep this railway was. It zig-zagged up the mountains on grades that sometimes inclined to 5% adverse grade. Along the way were two 150-ft long tunnels, but no bridges, and many very tight curves. To accommodate the latter, the O & K engines used hollow axles for driver sets 1 and 3 whose design was modifed from the original John Clark patent of 1870. (The center axle was the driven one and was mounted on the frame in the usual way.)

To create the outer hollow shell, the center of each driver was cast integrally with half a hollow axle tube. These joined at the centerline of each axle and swung around a pivot positioned nearer the center axle. Solid cores axles fitted with a ball joint at their centerlines supported the hollow portions while allowing plenty of side and radial movement.

The article does not mention the Klien-Lindner axle design (described in Locobase 3616), but later commentary specifically identifies the system as such.

The class operated on the Matheran for 75 years before being retired in favor of diesels. Two were preserved and one, 738, was steamed again in 2009 after being restored. A photograph showed an interesting stack cap "tiara" of light brass.