Bikaner State 2-8-2 Locomotives in India

Class 21 (Locobase 14379)

Data from [], last accessed 21 July 2007. See also DeGolyer, Volume 72, pp. 331+. See also F T Slayton, "Baldwin Locomotives of Modern Types in Service in India", Baldwin Magazine, Volume 4, No. 1 (July 1925), p. 56. Works numbers were 57805-57809 in June 1924.

These Mikados arrived in the same year that the Jodhpur Bikaner combine split into the Jodhpur State Railway and the Bikaner State Railway. According to Baldwin's F T Slayton, the Bikaner's original requirement was for hauling "kunker" to line an irrigation canal intended to support 1,000 sq mile of cultivation.

Given existing motive power, completion would take at least four years "...using 40 carloads per day (at 32 gross tons per car)" with 4-6-0 goods engines able to haul only 15 carloads over the 0.33% ruling grade The line over which they operated had maximum grades of 7% and relatively tight minimum curve radii of 350 feet (106.7 metres) or 16 1/2 degrees.

Baldwin offered this quintet, designed for the 9 ton axle loading, for delivery in 3 months. They arrived in India "ahead of schedule", wrote Slayton, and demonstrated a tonnage loading that included 30 kunker cars and two others for a gross train load of 978 tons. Moreover, the engines accomplished this burning a mixture of 2 tons of "poor grade" Palana lignite and 4 tons of Bengal coal and consuming at a rate "approximately that of their standard engines when [the latter was] hauling one-half the tonnage."

Baldwin's Mikado

Eight-inch (203 mm) piston valves admitted steam to these small 2-8-2s. Arch tubes contributed 15 sq ft (1.4 sq m) to direct heating surface.