Alta Italia / Lombard-Venetian 0-8-0 Locomotives in Italy

Class Beugniot 1001 (Locobase 20668)

Data from Ferrovie Dell' Alta Italia, Album Delle Locomotive (Torino, 1o Luglio 1876), T52. See also "Locomotiva FS 400" in Wikipedia at [], last accessed 24 November 2019; Charles Richard Weld, Florence, the New Capital of Italy (London: Longmans, Green, 1867), pp.3-9; and P M Kalla-Bishop, "Beugniot Locomotives", Continental Railway Journal, No 7 (December 1965), pp. 6-7, and No 8 (Summer 1966), pp. p. 4.. Works numbers were 612-613 in 1861, 794-799 in 1863-1864, and 1008-1009 in 1866.

Locobase 602 describes in detail the design originally laid out by Edouard Beugniot at the Andre Koechlin Works in Mulhouse. Since the goal was to provide as large a firebox as possible, the four locomotive axles were laid out ahead of the firebox in a flexible parallelogram in which each pair of axles was connected vertically through a Beugniot bar. It worked with a tender axle arrangement that placed two closely spaced axles at the back and a single axle under the very rear of the locomotive's frame. This layout allowed the locomotive to negotiate curves not otherwise negotiable by four coupled axles.

Another unusual feature was the valve train, which lay ahead of the outside cylinders.

They were the very first 0-8-0s to operate on an Italian railway. Charles Weld somewhat surprisingly left posterity with a detailed portrait of the challenges of building a railway in northern Italy, a description of Beugniot's design, and a negative opinion of its looks. First, "That man was indeed bold who first conceived the idea of throwing a railway across and through this part of the Apennines; for although railways have been carried over loftier elevations than these, I apprehend few mountains have presented more formidable difficulties than the Apennines, between Bologna and Pistoia."

Having reached Bologna from Torino over the "apparently interminable plains between Turin ... you doubtless experienced a yearning to exchange their dull level monotony for the surrounding mountains."

"Now, the wish may be easily gratified," Weld promised. "[T]he train pauses for a few minutes at Bologna, and then turning south enters the Val Reno, and is soon in the gorges of the Apennines." A trip of just 72 miles traveled over bridges over bridges "apparently of a most flimsy character, and entirely unprovided with parapets." Having reached Panico at the base of the Appenines, one then must "plunge into the viscera of the mountains" through a series of 46 tunnels, the longest of which measued 8,500 ft (2,591 m).

Weld's depiction of the ride from Bologna through Porretta and on to Florence is worth finding in Google books or Hathitrust.org. His characterization of Beugniot's "highly ingenious" design by this "doubtless a very clever man." but his locomotives share with all such machines "the hard ugly lines of the severe mechanism ...assuredly, the locomotives which run between Bologna and Florence are among the most hideous that have ever been constructed. They always reminded me of a monstrous hippopotamus, so low, massive, and ungainly is their appearance."

Wikipedia notes that each engine was essentially hand-built and rudimentary, although robust in construction.

Road numbers changed several times after the SFAI renumbered the class 1001-1010. In 1880, they bore 1201-1210. The RM's numbers were 4001-4010. When placed in their own Gruppo 400 upon the 1905 establishment of the national Ferrovie dello Stato (FS), only 4003 and 4005-4007 were renumbered 4001.

When delivered to the LV, they received the following names (in road number order). The SFAI kept the names. The last eight in the class were named for battles fought during Garibaldi's campaign for the unification of Italy in 1860. The Rete Mediterranea renamed eight of the ten. (Kalla-Bishop apparently found no record for the last two.)

LV & SFAI RM

L'Appenin Mammuth

Le Rubicon Mastondonte

Magenta Elefante

Montebello Colosso

Turbigo Pegaso

Palestro Rabicano

Melignano Ippogrifo

Solferino Grifone

Volturno

Buffalora

All of the class had been deleted by 1910.

Locobase found inconsistencies between the given values for the tube diameters, tube lengths, and for the evaporative heating surface area given as 160.0 sq m. The EHS value shown in Locobase's specs is composed of the firebox heating surface area given in the diagram and the tube heating surface area calculated from the stated tube length, external tube diameter, and count.

Class Beugniot 1011 (Locobase 20669)

Data from Ferrovie Dell' Alta Italia, Album Delle Locomotive (Torino, 1o Luglio 1876), T53. "Locomotiva FS 400" in Wikipedia at [], last accessed 24 November 2019; and P M Kalla-Bishop, "Beugniot Locomotives", Continental Railway Journal, No 7 (December 1965), pp. 6-7, and No 8 (Summer 1966), pp. p. 4..Works numbers were 1263-1272 in 1871.

Locobase 20668 describes the first ten Beugniot-designed goods locomotives, which were delivered from 1861-1866. Five years after the last of that class, Koechlin delivered this second batch of ten. The new engines were very similar to the previous group, but had a few more tubes in the boiler and a slightly longer wheelbase between the second and third axles. In addition, the three axle tender was replaced by one with only two axles

Like the earlier Beugniots, these engines were named after battles, but they memorialized combat in the 1866 Austro-Italian war. Sources show only the first seven names, which were San Martino, Pastrenzo, Arcole, Castiglione, Berico, Frassinate, and Caldiero. Renumbered by the Rete Mediterranea in 1885 as 4005-4013 (1218 had been scrapped after an accident), engine names referred to mythical creatures or persons: Ciclope, Fetonte, Tifeo, Polifemo, Anteo, Gerione, Bronteo, Endedalo, and Briareo.

All nine were taken into the Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) in 1905, but all had been discarded by 1910.

Locobase found inconsistencies between the given values for the tube diameters, tube lengths, and for the evaporative heating surface area given as 166.0 sq m. The EHS value shown in Locobase's specs is composed of the firebox heating surface area given in the diagram and the tube heating surface area calculated from the stated tube length, external tube diameter, and count.