Condado 4-6-0 Locomotives in Spain

Class Almonte (Locobase 5156)

Data from es.geocities.com/trenesdehuelva/condado.htm (October 2002), which has an incorrect value for adhesion weight. Locobase's number comes from WJK Davies Light Railways of World War I (New York: Reprints of Economic Classics, 1968).

The website reproduces a fascinating article (in Spanish) by D. Jose Antonio Gomez (originally published in Carril in 1994) about the construction, operation, and demise of this 8-km (5-mile) railway. Operation began in the early 1920s to open up the vineyards in the La Palma-Bullollos region to easier export operations out of Huelva (to its southwest) and Sevilla (to the east). The line was originally intended to be meter gauge, but both the availability of 60-cm railway and rolling stock and lower cost led to the adoption of a 60-cm scale right-of-way.

The two locomotives featured in this entry were originally built for the War Department Light Railway, but had barely been used. See Locobase 5393.

Priced to move at 68,117 pesetas (with 3,433 pesetas added to cover fees and taxes), the locomotives were shipped in March 1920. The railway opened amid great pomp on 2 January 1921 and it was soon running its freight and (uniquely for so narrow a gauge) passenger service at the rate of 25 minutes end-to-end

Everything was small -- rail weighed in a 12.8 kg/meter (a little over 25 lb/yard!), the locomotives weighed less than most large motor trucks, and -- alas! -- the hoped-for level of revenue fell well short as well. , The line's aspirations soon collided with economic reality. By the end of the 1920s and a string of years with meager revenue, the line was falling into disrepair and only the Bullollos was still running.

Then, on 8 November 1931, a boy named Antonio Gonzales hopped a freight and during the ride caught his foot under one of the wheels. In the pressure of speeding the boy to Bullollos, the namesake engine's driver induced a fatal breakdown in the last usable motive-power vehicle available. Although there were hopes, the railway never operated again.