Palestine Railways class P

The class P of the Palestine Railways consisted of six 4-6-0 locomotives built by North British in 1935 and numbered 60 to 65. They had been ordered to speed up traffic on the line between Haifa and El Kantara when it became clear that the older class H built by Baldwin could no longer keep up with the growing requirements on this line. Although officially being classed as mixed-traffic locomotives, their main task was to haul expresses which also had CIWL sleeping cars in them. The drivers of the class P were 4 3/4 inches bigger than those of the class H.

The locomotives with their Belpaire fireboxes looked British, but they had received American-style bogie tenders for greater capacity and better running characteristics. Built for burning Welsh coal, they were converted to oil burning in World War II when import of coal from Wales became too dangerous. All six survived this and the following conflicts and came to Israel Railways in 1948. After diesel locomotives had taken over the work on the main line in 1956, the class P still found some work elsewhere and was withdrawn in 1959 when steam service ended in Israel. Only the tender of 62 was preserved.