Giants of Steam

by Jonathan Glancey

  The Jitong railway was worked by steam until 8 December 2005. This ten-year period of grace gave many enthusiasts the opportunity to see powerful steam locomotives working hard at the head of heavy freight trains, along a line that passed through several areas of natural grandeur. The Jinpeng pass became a mecca for steam enthusiasts in that astonishing decade. Here, too, was the chance to ride long-distance, steam-hauled, sleeping-car trains, to ride on the footplate, to see locomotives being serviced, and to stay with the families of Datong’s tolerant steam men. I came this way in 1996 and was enchanted. This, truly, was the last great blast of regular main-line steam.

  For whatever reason, the Chinese authorities appeared to allow ‘foreign devils’, or ‘ghost people’, as they call us, something of a free hand in and around Datong. What few local hostels existed in this bleakly beautiful part of the world were rather grim places, so it was a delight to be able to stay with the families of locomotive crews. A little disappointingly for me, most of the men were looking forward to the day when diesels would arrive. In a bitterly cold climate, they wanted enclosed cabs and engines that could be easily switched off and parked for the night – no fire to rake out, no ashes to dispose of, little in the way of soot and oily grime. The men, however, threw themselves into their work with gusto.

  Between 1956 and 1988, no fewer than 4,714 QJs were built, accounting for about half of all steam locomotives produced from the Chinese revolution of 1949 until 1988, a decade after the country’s ‘second revolution’, the economic reforms led by Deng Xiaoping. Mass production of the class began in 1964. Significantly, the first QJ emerged from the Dalian works soon after the last Russian LV 2-10-2 was built. Over the years, various improvements were made, including an unofficial Chinese version of the Giesl ejector exhaust, and experiments with gas-producer fire-boxes, but the class remained essentially creatures of the late 1940s, modified for Chinese conditions.

  Hard-riding and unrefined in many ways, the QJs were nonetheless the workhorses of the Chinese railways in the 1970s and 1980s. They could be worked very hard and yet were generally liked by their crews. They steamed well, were simple to maintain, and many featured a WC in the tender, a luxury unknown to 99 per cent of the world’s steam locomotive crews. Restricted to a maximum speed of 80 kph (50 mph) – they were fitted with 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) driving wheels – the QJs were rated at a maximum of 2,980 ihp, although on test 3,580 ihp was recorded at 41 mph. It was certainly thrilling to ride the footplate of a QJ, klaxon sounding and whistle blowing, as it led a second member of the class at full regulator and 45 per cent cut-off up and around the curving concrete viaduct through the Jinpeng pass at the head of an enormous coal train, with twin plumes of steam trailing back through the snow-sheathed mountains.

  The SY (Shang You, or ‘reach upward’) class 2-8-2, of which some were still at work on colliery railways in 2012, was built between 1960 and 1999. More than 1,800 of these light mixed-traffic engines were put into service. The design of the SY, the world’s last mass-produced main-line steam locomotive, dates back almost a century. The locomotives owe their ancestry to the Japanese Mi Ka Ro 2-8-2, brought to China in 1934 at the time of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. In turn, the Mi Ka Ro was based on Alco 2-8-2s supplied to Japanese-occupied Korea in the 1920s. Despite attempts elsewhere to radically improve and even to completely rethink the conventional Stephensonian locomotive, it is significant that this final ambassador for main-line steam was a simple, modestly powered, yet rugged, two-cylinder machine, which would have fitted in quite readily to the railways of 1920s America before Woodard and super-power steam.

  An important British contribution to Chinese motive power was the Kf class 4-8-4, of which twenty-four were built by the Vulcan Foundry in 1934–5 to the design specifications of Kenneth Cantlie, technical adviser to the Chinese National Railways from 1930 to 1937. Cantlie was much in favour in China, as his father had saved Sun Yat-sen, first president of the Chinese Republic, from return to China and certain execution when, as a medical student in London, he was kidnapped by agents of the imperial government. Built for the heavily inclined Canton–Hangkow line, Cantlie’s 4-8-4s were powerful and impressive machines. When the locomotives were withdrawn in 1980, Hua Kuofeng, the Chinese railways minister, who had been a railway operating trainee when the British 4-8-4s were built, told Cantlie that they were among the finest locomotives in China and that he would like one to be taken back to England as a tribute to the engineer’s work. This was duly done, which is why a Kf 4-8-4 resides today at the National Railway Museum in York.

  *

  Steam survived late in the day in a number of countries, including India as well as China, but here again steam locomotive development never really advanced much after the 1940s. The pinnacle of 1940s steam design on railways outside of Britain, France, Germany, and the United States was, perhaps, the South African Railways class 25 and 25NC 4-8-4s, of which 140 were built by Henschel in Kassel and the North British Locomotive Company in Glasgow, between 1953 and 1955. These impressive and muscular machines, which ran in regular mainline service into the 1990s, have often been likened to scaled-down New York Central Railroad Niagara 4-8-4s, and, in many ways, that is what these heavily American-influenced locomotives were. What made them remarkable was the fact that they were designed and built for South Africa’s 3 ft 6 in gauge national railway and yet, despite this limitation, they were big and imposing as well as powerful machines.

  In terms of design, they were in advance of the Standard classes of locomotives built by British Railways in the 1950s. In fact, many of Britain’s most impressive steam locomotives were built for use in Africa and other parts of the former British Empire. There were several reasons for this, including the scale and nature of the landscapes the African railways ran through, a pressing need to conserve fuel and water, and the need for robust construction, reliability, and easy maintenance. There was, though, something else: the freedom of thought that some locomotive engineers working far away from Britain seem to have enjoyed. Meanwhile, the chief mechanical engineers of the South African Railways themselves worked closely, like their American peers, with commercial manufacturers.

  The 25s and 25NCs were, in fact, part of a pattern of locomotive development that dated back to before the Second World War and had paved the way for standardized engines of great power and efficiency. That these locomotives were also good-looking was not so much a bonus as a consequence of a mindset that believed that the railways deserved the very best. In the 1930s, the South African management tried to increase the speed of its trains up to rates previously unknown south of Algeria, where streamlined French Garratts ran at up to 75 mph on expresses between Oran and Algiers.

  An attempt to raise the speed limit on key main lines to 70 mph was blocked by the chief civil engineer, although not before Allan Griffiths Watson, chief mechanical engineer from 1929 to 1936 and mastermind of the standardization programme, had designed six magnificent 16E class Pacifics, built by Henschel, which could run very happily at more than 70 mph. Sadly, the railway’s blanket speed limit was raised to 110 kph (68.3 mph) – and then only on certain sections of the famous Blue Train route – only after the 16Es had been withdrawn from service in 1973. These two-cylinder Pacifics were extremely impressive. With massive boilers, huge, 63 sq ft grates, a high degree of superheating, 24 × 28 in cylinders, and Lentz rotary-cam poppet valves, they steamed well and ran freely. Their 6 ft 0 in driving wheels were the largest ever fitted to 3 ft 6 in gauge locomotives. Weighing 98 tons and as long and as high as British Pacifics, with a tractive effort of 39,985 lb, they were imposing and powerful machines and South Africa’s speediest locomotives – one was tested at 90 mph. They were also built more than fifteen years before British Railways’ two-cylinder Britannia Pacifics, their British equivalents.

  Watson, born in Hopetown, Cape Province, had spent five years in Glasgow between 1895 and 1900 working at the North British Locomotive Company and studying at the city’s technical c
ollege. A draughtsman with a fine eye, he had considerable experience of the day-to-day running of locomotives before he was appointed chief mechanical engineer of South African Railways and Harbours, at the age of fifty-three. He brought the country’s locomotive works up to date and, while maintaining excellent relations with the North British Locomotive Company in Glasgow and Henschel in Kassel, laid the foundations for one of the world’s finest fleets of modern steam locomotives, marrying the best traditions and innovations from Britain, Germany, the United States, and, increasingly, South Africa itself. Like many of his generation, he is an unsung hero in South Africa today.

  In 1935, Watson designed the 15F class, a very large, mixed-traffic 4-8-2, with 5 ft 0 in driving wheels, a grate area of 63 sq ft, and a tractive effort of 46,771 lb. Watson was also responsible for the excellent 19C class light 4-8-2s for branch and secondary lines, with rotary-cam poppet valve gear; and the 19D class 4-8-2s, with piston valves, built from 1937 to 1948. I rode behind several of these locomotives at the time of the elections that brought Nelson Mandela to power, especially on the sublime George–Knysna line, running along the south coast of South Africa. The way in which these engines accelerated away from stations set on sharp curves, and up gradients slippery after rain, was deeply impressive and remains one of my fondest steam memories to date. Here was a steam locomotive as well adapted to its environment as a mountain goat.

  The 16E Pacifics, however, were not sufficiently powerful to tackle the heaviest post-war passenger trains. Work on what became the 25 and 25NC class 4-8-4s began in the late 1940s, when experiments with enlarged boilers and condensing equipment were carried out under the direction of H. J. L. du Toit, working under Dr M. M. Loubser, who was chief mechanical engineer from 1939 to 1949, in collaboration with Henschel. The orders for the 4-8-4s were finally placed by L. C. Grubb, chief mechanical engineer from 1949 to 1954.

  A massive 6 ft 4 in diameter boiler, pressed to 225 psi, was fired by a welded-steel 70 sq ft grate. The combustion chamber was adopted from German practice established by Richard Wagner. Steam was passed to two 24 × 28 in cylinders. Driving wheels were 5 ft 0 in; tractive effort was 51,400 lb. Roller bearings were used throughout the engines. Free running and packing a tremendous punch on starting, the 4-8-4s proved to be ideal locomotives for several routes on a railway characterized by heavy passenger and freight trains worked up steep gradients from frequent stops. In autumn 1968, O. S. Nock made a trip to South Africa and in the June 1969 issue of Railway magazine wrote up a very typical run made by these greatly respected machines. He rode the eighteen-coach 08.55 stopping train from Kimberley to De Aar, a 146 mile trip. The load was 730 tons. No. 3449 took this heavy train in its stride. The train made fifteen intermediate stops in its journey across the rolling plains, with an average running speed of 57.6 kph (35.8 mph).

  Given that stations were often as little as five and a maximum of fifteen miles apart, and that the line limit was 90 kph (56 mph), this was very good going. ‘The evidence of extremely hard work from every start was manifested in a continuous roar from the exhaust,’ Nock observed. ‘There was also some long and uphill slogging, on gradients of around 1-in-100, with magnificently sustained speeds of 38 to 40 mph . . . the making of relatively short runs of around ten miles, start to stop, at average running speeds of 40 mph was extraordinarily good work.’ It was rather like the work Kiefer’s Niagaras were put to at the end of their working lives on the New York Central Railroad, with trains between New York and Chicago making stops every twenty to thirty miles.

  ‘Here was a country,’ wrote the British engineer Stewart Cox in Locomotive Panorama (vol. 2, 1966), thinking of these mighty, Cape-gauge 4-8-4s, ‘where steam had run its course of development to the very limits of size and weight . . . As in the case of the USA, it is hard to see what further development would have been possible, was electrification not being deployed to take its place.’ This is interesting, because Cox reveals just how unaware steam locomotive engineers were of the potential for further development at the very time that the steam locomotive itself was most under threat. It was, in fact, in South Africa, some fifteen years after Cox’s Locomotive Panorama was published, that David Wardale rebuilt a class 25 into a substantially more powerful and efficient steam locomotive, The Red Devil (see Chapter 7).

  Designed under the direction of their chief engineer, Dr Richard Roosen, ninety of the new 4-8-4s were equipped with Henschel condensing equipment including vast condensing tenders. The aim was to reduce water consumption dramatically when operating steam in arid regions like the Great Karoo, between Touws River and De Aar, and across South-West Africa. Exhaust steam from the cylinders passed through a receiver to a turbine-driven draughting fan in the smoke-box, which replaced the conventional blast-pipe, and then through large-diameter pipes to a low-pressure turbine at the front of the tender, before finally passing to condensing pipes at the sides of the tender. The low-pressure turbine was geared to drive five condenser air-cooling fans mounted along the top of the tender. Condensation was collected in a well at the bottom of the tender and then returned to the boiler using two turbine-driven rotary pumps. Although complex, this arrangement allowed the 25s to run up to five hundred miles between water stops. The 25s consumed 90 per cent less water than the conventional 25NCs (non-condensing), using the same water up to eight times over, while the use of hot recycled feedwater also led to a 10 per cent decrease in coal consumption. With their huge tender, lute-shaped smoke-box, and whining exhaust, the 25s cut a very particular dash across the scorching veldt.

  Inevitably, maintenance costs were higher than for the non-condensing 25s, and as they were replaced on the Karoo main line by diesels and electrics between 1973 and 1980, they were converted into 25NCs. Cheap coal and global fuel crises kept South Africa in steam until relatively late in the day, although ardent modernizers were at work here as elsewhere. Even during the oil scares of the late 1970s, at a time when South African industry was being asked to go easy on the use of oil, diesel locomotives were ordered to replace steam. This was unnecessary and barely justified: tests proved that the 25s compared well with the new diesels in terms of running costs. Exceptionally hard-working locomotives, the 25s could be turned at the end of a five-hundred-mile run with the heaviest of trains and sent back in the opposite direction, with minimal maintenance. Steam, though, had to go, whatever the cost; common sense was not always part of the management agenda.

  The 25s worked a substantial amount of passenger and freight traffic in their long heyday; powerful, much liked by crews, and generally popular, they were a fine example of a late-flowering, heavy-duty, mixed-traffic locomotive which could have been developed further as a class in terms of both power output and efficiency. The class was essentially intact as late as 1988. Unfortunately, decisions made at government level to transfer freight to the roads made an increasing number of locomotives redundant. Today, it is heartbreaking to see the wilful destruction of historic locomotives and to witness how the conservation of steam, which is hugely popular with visitors to the country, is met with official obstruction, being regarded in some narrow-minded quarters as a legacy of colonialism. South Africa appears to be turning its back on this particular aspect of its history.

  *

  Sadly, the once highly efficient East African Railways have gone much the same way. It seems beyond belief that such a fine international railway network, connecting Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, was allowed to fall into precipitous decline. The damage to the economies of these three countries has been enormous, as battered and often dangerous and unreliable lorries have taken the place of trains hauled by a fleet of magnificent, well-maintained and spotless locomotives. The greatest of these was without doubt the class 59 4-8-2 + 2-8-4 Garratt built in Gorton, Manchester, in 1955–6 by Beyer Peacock. These thirty-four machines were the largest, heaviest, and most powerful steam locomotives – capable of producing 3,500 ihp when fitted with Gisel ejectors – built for a metre-gauge line anywhere in the w
orld. From 1960, by which time the American Mallets and 4-8-4s had gone, they were among the most powerful steam locomotives running anywhere in the world.

  Resplendent in highly polished maroon paintwork, with gleaming cabs, usually manned by devoted Sikh crews, the class 59s, which were all named after African mountains, were built to work both heavy long-distance freight and passenger mail trains up from the Kenyan coast at Mombasa to Nairobi. This long, single-track line – all 329 miles of it – boasted a ruling uphill gradient of 1-in-66. It climbed from sea level at Mombasa to 5,600 feet at Nairobi; further on towards Kampala, the line peaked first at 7,690 feet at Uplands on the eastern scarp of the Great Rift Valley, and then, once across this daunting geographical divide, climbed yet again to 9,136 feet east of Timboroa. With a weight of 252 tons and a tractive effort of 83,350 lb, the 59s were masters of this demanding and exceptionally beautiful line, working 1,200 ton trains with relative ease – loads 70 per cent greater than before their arrival. The sight and sound of these glorious engines pounding up steep escarpments and steaming past prides of lions and other wildlife, or winding their way down the roller-coaster track back to Mombasa, must have been thrilling.

  The story of the East African Railways was certainly a dramatic one. After much heated debate, Westminster agreed to the construction of a 584 mile railway from Mombasa on the Indian Ocean up to Nairobi and on through the Kenyan Highlands to Port Florence (Kisumu) on the eastern bank of Lake Victoria. The £5 million line was built in a breathtakingly fast five years, between 1896 and 1901, opening to traffic in 1903. ‘The British art of “muddling through” was here seen in one of its finest expositions,’ wrote Winston Churchill, an early visitor to the new railway. ‘Through everything – through the forests, through the ravines, through troops of marauding lions, through famine, through war, through five years of excoriating Parliamentary debate – muddled and marched the railway.’