Jura-Simplon 4-4-0 Locomotives in Switzerland

Class A 2/4 (Locobase 11252)

Data from "A Swiss Compound Locomotive," The Railroad and Engineering Journal, Vol LXVI, No 12 (December 1892), pp. 560-561 as corrected by "Locomotives compound a grande vitesse du Jura-Simplon", Revue generale des chemins de fer, Vol 16 (), pp. 310-311, which reprinted the account of the Schweizerische Bauzeitung (26 November and 3 December, 1892).

This may have been the first two-cylinder compound built for a Swiss railway.

The design was certainly the first to use von Borries' intercepting valve to allow live steam into both cylinders upon starting. Other design features included a steel boiler, but copper firebox and tubesheets.

It also introduced compound working to Swiss passenger service and, according to the AERJ account, hauled a 257-ton up a "long" 1% grade and maintained a steady 30 mph (48 km/h) and had steam in reserve. The accompanying illustration shows a long, straight boiler with the steam dome positioned over the trailing truck axle and just behind the straight stack.

Class A2 35 / Eb 2/4 (Locobase 11248)

Data from [], last accessed 8 May 2010.

The JS had bought 4-4-0s from Kessler for almost 30 years when it took delivery of this batch of 30 more. They were rated at 70 km/h (43 mph) when they came on the railway and they used Allan valve gear. A decade after its delivery, these engines were run at 75 km/h (46 mph) and still later the Allan gear was replaced by Walschaert radial valve gear.

As their small drivers might suggest, these were well suited to light passenger service between Geneva and Lausanne, where they trailed loads of about 50 tons.

Except for the SBB's 5469, which was preserved and later restored, all of the class was scrapped in the mid 1920s.

Class Eb 2/4 (Locobase 6398)

Data from [] ... (1 Dec 2004), the Swiss Heritage Foundation website. Specifically purchased for work on the Lausanne-Geneva run, these tanks are quite similar to the Maffei-built Ea 2/4s delivered to the Gotthardbahn a year earlier (Locobase 5121). The JS locomotives had smaller grates, smaller drivers, and operated at a lower boiler pressure.

Once that district electrified in 1925, all of the class but one was scrapped. That one was renumbered 5469 and operated by the Nebenlinie Nyon Crassier Divonne until 1947, when it was preserved as an exhibit. In 1971-1973, the locomotive was rebuilt and restored to operating condition.