CFR / Caile Ferate Romane 0-8-0 Locomotives in Romania

Class 40 (Locobase 5877)

Data from [] -- visited 14 Jan 2004. The coal line between Oravita and Anina saw a lot of different motive power designs. This particular class was first produced in 1929. The table from which the data comes, however, tells us nothing about the number built.

Class 764 (Locobase 20604)

Data from Google translation of "MAVAG-Typ 70", Wikipedia at [], last accessed 20 July 2019.

Locobase 20603 describes MAVAG's Type 70 agricultural and forestry locomotive that entered production in 1905. Its virtues included good power, Klien-Lindner hollow axles that handled tight curves, and reliability. The original design used Stephenson link motion for the valves, but batches produced in Hungary in World War II were fitted with Heusinger radial valve gear. They also used two steam domes instead of one.

Although Romania took possession of most of the later batches after Soviet armies overran the country, it needed still more such useful locomotives. So the CFR's main works at Resita produced its own variant, a close copy with some tweaks. The builder slightly reduced cylinder diameter and increased cylinder stroke and delivered the same cylinder volume. Grate and firebox areas grew, but forced the boiler's tube lengths to decrease by over a meter, significantly lowering tube heating surface.

Resita's batches appeared in 1952-1958. Almost thirty years later the tractor works at Reghin turned out twelve more 764s because they were essentially irreplaceable when the alternatives were diesels that burned high-priced fuel supplied by the Soviet Union.

Class XXXIIaq (Locobase 4831)

Frojach Museum site [] (original link, later [], last accessed 2 July 2024: Works numbers were 7194-7196 in 1916.

To support Romanian logging railways, a locomotive had to have several distinct features. Beginning in 1905, several different builders supplied many of these small eight-coupled tanks over a period of several decades. The bulk of the 764s entered service in 1949-1957.

A low axle loading, 100% weight of the engines on the smallest-diameter drivers possible. Another aid to tight turning was the use of Klien-Lindner axles. Photos of the result show a stocky side-tank with two steam domes flanking a sand dome along a short boiler. Resita built many examples for Romanian use.

This particular engine operated on several Romanian narrow-gauge railroads through the 1980s. After its retirement, Club 760 bought and operated it. Its members soon dubbed it "Draculinchen" ("Little Dracula") in honor of its "Transylvanian" origins.

According to Google Translate's rendition of the Club 760 history,

"The little machine is so pleasing in its proportions that you would like to put it on your bedside table (that's not possible, of course, but it would be nice, by the way, top speed: a whopping 15 km/h)"

Boiler pressure is an estimate. Wheelbase data from http://www . interlok.info/Resitaf.htm (viewed 22 March 2004).