Meridionale 0-8-0 Locomotives in Italy

Class Adamo Smith/FS 450 (Locobase 21062)

Data from "4/4 gek. Schnellzug-lokomotive fur Normale Spurweite", Locomotiven, A Borsig (Tegel bei Berlin, 1898), archived on Historical Railway Images, Flickr, at [], p. 23, last accessed 11 July 2022. See also "Locomotiva FS 450" in Wikipedia at [], last accessed 28 July 2022. Works numbers were 3911-3918 in 1883.

Not long after this octet of slow-freight eight-coupleds arrived on the Meridionale, the railway merged with several others to form the Rete Adriatica (RA). It was a small class, but Wikipedia's entry notes a variety of boiler lengths, boiler water capacity, and steam space among the eight engines. Also, the number of tubes ranged from 228 to 241.

FS classification divided the 450s into Series I--4501, 4503 (ex-4502-4503) and Series II for the rest, which were further separated into heavy --4502, 4505, 4508--and 4504, 4506-4507.

[NB: Tube heating surface area of 136.54 sq m (1,466 sq ft) resulted in 146.27 sq m (1,577 sq ft) . was calculated in Italian sources from the inside diameter of 45 mm. To simplify comparison with North American and British-origin locomotives, Locobase uses the outside diameter.]

Regardless of variant, however, the vessel produced the same amount of steam per hour. and all generated about 620 hp and 5,600 kg (12,345 lb/54.91 kN at 30 kph (19 mph).

It appears that three of the class (901, 904-905) were delivered with Walschaert's constant-lead outside gear; the other five used inside link motion. Axle loadings varied as did adhesion and engine weights, too.