British Controlled Oil Fields 0-4-2 Locomotives in Venezuela

Class Zulia (Locobase 15435)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Volume 79, p 169+. See also Purlord Bell, "British Controlled Oilfields, Ltd" in "Petroleum", Venezuela, a Commercial and Industrial Handbook: With a Chapter on the Dutch West Indies, Special Agents Series-No. 212, Department of Commerce (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1922) pp. 99-100. Works numbers were 59444-59445 in August 1926.

The BCOF bought these two tanks to work in the oil fields in Falcon state. (The second of the two engines was named Falcon.) Oil-fired, they used a fuel whose rated gravity was 27 degrees Baume (specific gravity of 0.892). Baldwin's standard arrangement placed the burner at the front end of the firebrick-lined firebox. Firebricks also paved the bottom of the ashpan.

The Bernabe Planas Concession was established by the government in the district of Buchivacoa in 1907 and was taken up by the Venezeulan Falcon Oil Syndicate. Their initial efforts were hampered by inappropriate choices in drilling equipment and by depredations on the work force by aggressive malaria-carrying mosquitos.

But the concession was sizable, covering 6,000,000-7,000,000 (9,375-10,938 sq mi/24,300-28,352 sq km), much of it fronting on the Caribbean Sea.