Minho e Douro Articulated Locomotives in Portugal

Class E 164 (Locobase 6395)

Data from [], the website of the Swiss rail preservation group La Traction.

According to La Traction, these Mallets came to the M e D over a three-year period. Operational experience showed them to be overweight when compared with other metre-gauge. Still they remained in service for decades, receiving their final set of numbers when the national railway (CP) was formed in 1947.

La Traction's example was shut down in Portugal in 1984. Google's uncertain translation is ambiguous, but E 164 was transferred in some way from Portugal to Delemont where it was on display for years. Restoring it to running condition took years and a fortuitous grant from the Federation d' impulsion economique regionale (FIER). Shops in Meiningen put the E 169's rear engine set under a new steel boiler and installed a compressed-air brake system. Even then, light-off showed that the injectors wouldn't work above a 10-bar pressure and the brake system leaked. Some of the bearings failed as well. Eventually all was worked through and the locomotive entered regular museum service in 2000.