Federated Malay States Railways Articulated Locomotives in Malaya

Class 1 (Locobase 14396)

Data from DeGolyer, Volume 57, pp. 311+; and P Allen Copeland, "Baldwin 0-6-6-0 Locomotives Sent to Chile", unpublished manuscript dated 6 June 2009, supplied by Allen Stanley in August 2013 from his extensive Rail Data Exchange collection. Works numbers were 49483 in August 1918 and 50676 in December.

The onset of the Russian Revolution in November (Julian date: October) 1917 led to the cancellation of orders for hundreds of locomotives, including a batch of 51 light Mallets. Most were sent along to Iraq (Locobase 14395), but two found their way to Malaya.

Cabbage-stacked and oil-fired, the two engines (ex 148 and 149) worked heavy freight trains between Port Swettenham (Klang) and Kuala Lumpur. Quite probably because they were too big for most traffic requirements, both were retired after less than fifteen years. 1 was idled in 1930, 2 in 1932..

Class unknown (Locobase 20813)

Data from DeGolyer, Volume 57, pp. 311+; and David Sunderland, British Economic Development in South East Asia, 1880 - 1939, Volume 3 (London: Routledge, 2017)-originally Pickering & Chatto, 2014) p. 66.

See Locobase 14395 for an extended discussion of Baldwin's batch of Mallets originally ordered by the Russian government. With the coming of the Russian Revolution in November (Julian date: October) 1917 and the cancellation of orders for hundreds of locomotives, Baldwin found a ready buyer in tthe British War Mission for France in March 1918.

The order included a change from the 3 foot, 6 inch (1,067 mm) cape gauge to metre gauge. As in the other ex-Russians, high-pressure cylinders received their steam through 8" (203 mm) piston valves; Low-pressure cylinders used Richardson balanced slide valves. Most of the Mallets wound up in Mesopotamia (later Iraq), but two were sent to the FMSR as a response to increased demand for pulling power.

Apparently converted to coal burning through Extra Work order #3500, the two arrived in Malaysia in 1918. Sunderland wrote: "Although relieving the situation at the time, the engine were not suitable for the railway the timetables of which were founded on the general utility principle" [Locobase takes this comment to mean that their main line speed was simply too slow or that fuel consumption proved too high.] Ultimately, he added, "their use was largely confined to the Port Swettenham branch."