Unspecified 4-4-0 Locomotives in India

Class BESA/SP (Locobase 4255)

Data from [] (30 June 2003). See also Leslie S Robertson, Secretary, Report of the Locomotive Committee on Standard Locomotives for Indian Railways (London: Crosby Lockwood & Son, 2nd Ed, November 1905). See also Cyril Hitchcock, "The Standardisation of Locomotives in India, 1910", Engineer, Volume 110 (28 October 1910), pp. 475; The Engineer's editors presented an emphatic dismissal of the notion of standarisation of types (e.g.: "Standard Goods", "Atlantic Passenger") in the same issue at p. 468. "LS"'s rebuttal appeared in the 11 November 1910 Engineer at p. 511.

These symmetrical Standard Passenger (SP) had all inside motion that was, like the Belpaire boiler, identical to that of the British Engineering Standards Association SG (Standard Goods) six-coupled freight engine. The SPs came in two sizes; this one used the smaller of the two SG boilers ahead of its Belpaire firebox. (The same two boiler designs were used in the 2-6-4T PT design.)

Kitson & Company supplied 26 SP locomotives to the Indian North Western Railway in 1906 (works numbers 4384-4409) as their 876-901.

In his otherwise positive view of standardised designs (in particular the 4-6-0s), "LS", who identified himself as a "district officer and works manager" on an Indian railway, also wrote in 1910 that he'd scrap the 0-6-0 and 4-4-0 design as "obsolete and useless." He especially disliked the 4-4-0s: "[N]o good can be said except they are a little better than the older types." After this faintest of praise, LS raised blisters: "[T]hey do not steam very well, and will not run. I have never seen them touch 60 miles per hour [95 kph]; they are coal and oil eaters, and if on fast work, cost a lot for repairs."

See the 4-6-0 HP (Locobase 4241) for full description of the BESA intention and varying views of its utility.

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Class BESA/SP (1910) (Locobase 20736)

Data from "The Work of the British Engineering Standards Association as Applied to Locomotives and Rolling Stock: The Standardization of Locomotives for Indian Railways", Locomotive Magazine, Volume XXV [25] (15 August 1919), pp. 120-123.

Locobase 4255 included a sharply disparaging 1910 comment from "LS" concerning SP 4-4-0's feeble design and performance. In the same year, the British Engineering Standards Association concluded that heavier rail and more substantial permanent ways allowed the installation of a larger boiler and firebox. The differences provided more reserve in

See the 4-6-0 HP (Locobase 4241) for full description of the BESA intention and varying views of its utility.