Gran Ferrocarril de la Ceiba “Venezuela”, “Roncajolo” and “Valera”

The Gran Ferrocarril de la Ceiba in Venezuela operated three 0-6-0ST saddle tank locomotives with an additional tender which had been built by Baldwin. Their saddle tank held 600 gallons of water, while the tender added 1,100 gallons more. Since they burned wood, a larger quantity of this could only be carried on the tender. This meant that these locomotives could not travel longer distances without the tender. At an empty weight of only 16.5 tons and a total weight with tender of 33 tons, they were fairly small. So the drivers measured only 33 inches and the cylinders had a diameter of eleven and a stroke of 16 inches.

The first two were built in 1896 with the works numbers 14845 and 15063. They were named “Venezuela” and “Roncajolo”, carried no running number and had a boiler pressure of 140 psi. The third one, named “Valera” followed a long time later in 1922 with the works number 55313. This one had a higher boiler pressure of 170 psi. Records and photos show that this locomotive also carried the number 8 and was converted to oil firing. For the other two it is more difficult to determine which numbers they got and if they were also converted to oil firing.