Beira 4-4-0 Locomotives in Rhodesia

Class F2 (Locobase 10128)

Data from Industrial Railway Recordl, reproduced on [], last accessed 12 April 2009.

See Locobase 10127 for a description of the Beira Railway in its 2'-gauge years and of the restoration of a Falcon F4. According to retired Rhodesia Railway officer AH Croxton's letter in the IRR's April 1971 edition, Falcon supplied 44 or 45 locomotives to the Beira.

One difference between this Falcon type and the later engine shown in 10127 was the former's 4-wheel tender.

Class F4 (Locobase 10127)

Data from "Beira Narrow Gauge Railway Locomotives," The Locomotive & Railway Carriage & Wagon Review, Vol IV (October 1899), p. 158.

This was the larger of the two Falcon Eight-wheeler designs; the smaller F2 is shown in Locobase 10128.

The B-U was originally built as a 2'-gauge railroad with a 222-mile trunk line that began construction in 1892 and only finished 5 1/2 years later. Service included 8 goods trains a day and one mail train a week. The Falcon 4-4-0s passenger averaged 12 mph.

Incredibly, one of these tiny little Eight-wheelers went back in service more than a century after it was first declared redundant. Once the Beira was converted to 3' 6" gauge in 1900, the little engines were stored and only brought out to support construction trains. In the early 30s, both the NG97 and the NG106 (ex-BR 7) were sold to the Zebedela Citrus Estates. After the concern's closure in 1959, the NG97 was removed in 1962 by James Hall who put it in his eponymous transport museum in Johannesburg. In 2007, Hall's son Peter donated to the very active Sandstone Heritage Trust, which "gave it a fast-track restoration" and put it in museum service with its stablemate (NG106) on 29 June 2008. (See [], last accessed 12 April 2009).