Rhodesian Railways Kitson-Meyer Locomotives in Rhodesia

Class unknown (Locobase 12920)

Data from L[eon] Ramakers, "New Articulated Locomotive for the R.hodesian Railway", Modern Machinery, Volume 18 (November 1905), pp. 270-271. See also Frank C Perkins, "Rhodesia Railways in South Africa," Scientific American Supplement No. 1568 (20 January 1906), p.. 25117-25118. On the Cape-to-Cairo Railway, see J Hartley Knight's contemporary report "Recent Progress on the Cape-to-Cairo", Engineering magazine, Volume 30, No 1 (October 1905), pp. 15-31.

Locobase 3625 shows the Kitson-Meyer delivered to the South African Railways at nearly the same time as these two arrived in Rhodesia. Ramaker comments that these engines were bought to work the "...heavy freight trains over the severe grades and sharp curves ..." The long boiler had a Belpaire firebox and rode on two bogies, each with 6 drivers and each driven from a set of cylinders trailing its set of axles. Each bogie occupied an unusual position compared to other layouts with front bogie's lead axle under the smokebox and the rear bogie entirely behind the firebox.

Live steam supplied the cylinders through ball and socket joints. Exhaust steam from the front cylinders provided the draft for the firebox, the "hind" cylinders (as Ramakers termed them) exhausted through a pipe in the short bunker behind the cab. Additional water and coal rode in the 8-wheel tender that always trailed the engine.

Although they were described as hauling twice the train load of any of the most powerful locomotives hitherto operated in Rhodesia, the pair were not successful.