Over a long period from 1866 to 1891, the Nord had a total of 430 freight locomotives of basically the same type built. With the 0-8-0 wheel arrangement, they were among the most powerful models at the time of their introduction. The nickname “180 Unités” came from a French unit to measure tractive forces. Four units corresponded here, for example, to a freight car with a load of less than ten tonnes, which is pulled on the flat at 50 km/h.

The cylinders, which were quite large with a diameter of 500 mm, were already mounted outside the frame. In reality, the locomotives could pull coal trains weighing 680 tonnes on lines with a maximum gradient of 0.6 percent. At 1.2 percent, 415 tonnes could still be pulled. In later series, the boiler pressure was increased from 8.5 to 10 bars, which increased the train weights accordingly.

The locomotives built after 1879 were fitted with a boiler with a Belpaire firebox. From 1890, a driver's cab was installed ex works. Between 1907 and 1913, 108 locomotives were converted into tank locomotives. Other machines from the Nord-Belge that were almost identical in construction were also converted in this way and used in Belgium.

No. 4.042 in the original version

Die Lokomotive, February 1933

When the SNCF was founded in 1938, only two of the non-converted tender locomotives were still in use. Of the 108 tank locomotives, a total of 104 were still in use. The last of these remained in use as shunting locomotives until 1962. Today only 4.853 survives, which was not converted into a tank locomotive and was used in a sugar refinery until the 1960s.

To haul heavy coal trains from Peterborough to London, Ivatt developed the K class, which was soon dubbed the “Long Tom” because of its longer boiler compared to the six-coupled locomotives. The dimensions of this boiler roughly corresponded to the class 990 or C1 (small boiler) Atlantics. It could generate enough power to haul 60 full wagons of coal. This corresponded to a train weight of 1,052 long tons compared to 681 long tons for the previous, six-coupled freight locomotives. With the cylinder dimensions required for this, it was still possible to arrange the cylinders within the frame. From 1901 a total of 55 engines were made.

Although the engines could handle the required train weights without any problems, the high consumption of coal was noticeable. Therefore, from 1908 almost all engines were superheated, with two different variants being created. The first one, later designated by the LNER as the Q1s class, retained the original cylinder dimensions and piston slides. The other, which later became the LNER's Q2 class, used cylinders with a diameter of 21 instead of 20 inches and piston valves instead of slide valves. Both variants had Schmidt-type superheaters and both had the fully automatic Klinger-type lubrication required for superheated steam operation.

In 1913 number 445 was fitted with the Doncaster superheater developed by Gresley. No other engines with this superheater followed. From 1923, it was listed as class Q3 by the LNER due to the different performance characteristics. In 1914, number 420 was fitted with a significantly larger boiler. Since the other boilers of this type were finally used for the 2-6-0 machines of the K2 class, the 420 remained a one-off.

No. 420 with bigger boiler

Locomotive Magazine, December 1918

In the 1920's the superheaters were replaced with the Robinson type which were standard on the LNER. With the introduction of the 2-8-0 locomotives of classes O1 and O2, the engines were no longer needed for transporting coal to London and were increasingly used in more northerly areas. During this time they were nicknamed “Sea Pigs” because of their high water consumption compared to other locomotives. From 1926 the retirement began, whereby the few locomotives with wet steam boilers were affected first. By 1935 all Q1s and Q2s were gone and the only Q3 lasted until 1937.

After the four class 76 freight locomotives had been put into service on the Arlberg in 1884, the class 73 shown here was introduced only one year later. The new locomotive was also a 0-8-0, but had smaller cylinders and produced around 700 hp. As the first batches were built for the Arlberg Railway, they were just called “Arlberg type”. Soon they were also built for the Galician Transversal Railway and many other lines.

Between 1885 and 1909, a total of 454 were delivered by several manufacturers. On the flat, they could haul 1,650 tonnes at 30 km/h. A speed of 15 km/h could be attained either with 580 tonnes at a one percent grade or with 220 tonnes at 2.5 percent. When faster and more powerful 2-8-0 and 0-10-0 locomotives were introduced, the class 73 was increasingly used for shunting service.

After World War I, only 44 stayed with the BBÖ. 233 locomotives, more than a half of the original production, came to Poland and became PKP Tp15. 119 became class 414.0 of the ČSD, 25 came to Italy, 17 to Romania and four to the future Yugoslavia. In 1938, the Austrian locomotives became Reichsbahn class 55⁵⁷. After the war, 38 were used by the ÖBB as class 55 until 1964. The ČSD retired the last one in 1969. 414.096 was preserved and is operational again since 2019.

In 1873, the Kaiserin-Elisabeth-Bahn initially received eight freight locomotives from the Sächsische Maschinenfabrik Hartmann in Chemnitz. One of them received an honorary diploma at the 1873 World Exhibition in Vienna. The next 16 locomotives came from Austria, namely from Wiener Neustadt and Floridsdorf.

These were eight-coupled locomotives with a wheel diameter of 1,106 mm for use on low mountain lines with a low axle load. To run through tighter curves, the fourth axle could be moved laterally by 20 mm. They had outside cylinders but inside valve gear.

When the KEB was nationalized in 1884 they became the kkStB class 70. Shortly thereafter they received new boilers to extend their life. After the First World War, a total of five came to the ČSD, which remained in service for more than 20 years. The two machines of the BBÖ were retired in 1936.

The railway administrations of the Tsarist Empire combined eight-coupled freight locomotives under the letter О, which made it to a number of more than 9,000 in different versions. The series went back to a type from Maschinenfabrik Esslingen, which had been supplied to several railway administrations from 1878 onwards. In order to follow the trend of the time, the Vladikavkaz railway had two-cylinder compound locomotives based on this type manufactured in Kolomna in 1890, which marked the beginning of the О series.

O_в No. 324 in August 2015 at the Podmoskovnaya depot in Moscow

Andreykor

From 1893 a unified standard type was manufactured, which had a wheel diameter of only 1,150 mm and cylinders with a diameter of initially 500 and 710 mm with a stroke of 650 mm. After 129 examples were produced, the diameter of the low-pressure cylinder was increased to 730 mm. A total of 1,373 examples of the standard type from 1893 were manufactured by 1899, which were also supplied from Germany and Austria due to the limited capacities of the Russian factories.

Armoured locomotive O_? No. 5067 in the Central Museum of the Russian Armed Forces

Valery Ded

In 1897 a new standard type appeared, of which a total of 3,172 were built by eight Russian factories by 1903. This variant, designated О^д, now had a driver diameter of 1,200 mm and a boiler pressure increased from 11 to 11.5 bar.

After two prototypes were completed in 1899 with a Heusinger type valve gear instead of the problematic Joy valve gear, a total of 4,178 examples were built between 1901 and 1907, which also had a Heusinger valve gear. The diameter of the cylinders had been increased to 510 and 740 mm. The two types were designated О^в and О^k and were alternatively known as the 1901 standard type and the 1904 standard type. Between 1908 and 1915 another 190 examples of the О^в were made.

When superheated steam became established in locomotive construction, a few locomotives with superheaters and simple expansion were built between 1908 and 1915. These were given the designation О^п and soon other examples of the earlier series were rebuilt in the same way. After the October Revolution, another 72 pieces were made between 1925 and 1928. Later, some locomotives received boilers with a pressure of 14 bar during conversions. After the introduction of more powerful freight locomotives from the 1930s, they were increasingly used for shunting. The last operations on the route took place in 1964 on a branch line of the Trans-Baikal.

George Hughes produced his first class 30 locomotive by rebuiding a class 30 locomotive from his predecessor Aspinall to a four-cylinder compound engine. Ten more were created in this form. Other locomotives with two cylinders and simple steam expansion, which were built from 1910 onwards, were also assigned to class 30. 29 of these had been converted from Aspinall's class 30 and 40 more had Hughes built new at Horwich. Later they received superheaters so that they were similar to the class 31. They were assigned to power class 6F by the LMS. The last engines survived the formation of British Railways and were retired in 1951.

Between 1893 and 1900, Francis Webb built 111 class A 0-8-0 goods locomotives for the LNWR. Like earlier Webb compounds with two driving axles they had two small high-pressure cylinders on the outside and one larger low-pressure cylinder on the inside. But unlike these, all four axles of the class A were coupled.

Since Webb's successors Whale and Bowen Cooke wanted to clear the problems of the Webb compounds, they rebuilt the whole class into two-cylinder simple locomotives. So 15 became class C, 62 became class D and 34 became class C1. Most were again rebuilt to class G1 and some of these again to class G2a, with the last ones only being withdrawn in 1962.

Based on his class A three-cylinder compound, Francis Webb designed the four-cylinder compound class B for the LNWR. Between 1901 and 1904, a total of 170 were built. They earned the nickname “Swami” after magicians who used to disappear in a cloud of smoke. Like their predecessors, they had clearly visible inclined outside cylinders, but here these were smaller. Due to the four cylinders, they were fairly top-heavy with 31 tons on the front two axles and only 22 tons 10 cwt on the rear two axles.

So the numerous rebuilds of class B started when George Whale rebuilt 26 with a leading axle and designated them class E. Ten class F locomotives rebuilt between 1906 and 1908 also had a leading axle, but also a bigger boiler. 32 two-cylinder simples rebuilt between 1912 and 1927 were designated class G. Here the two bigger inside low-pressure cylinders were used as new high-pressure cylinders.

Locomotive Magazine, March 1902

Another more comprehensive rebuild took place between 1917 and 1927 when Bowen Cooke rebuilt 91 class B locomotives to the superheated two-cylinder class G1. Additional locomotives of classes E, F and G and even the rebuilds of the class A were also rebuilt to class G1. Some even lost their leading axle again when the outside cylinders were removed. So the LMS had only taken over 53 unrebuilt locomotives of class B in 1923, but rebuilt more of them. In 1927, only ten unrebuilt locomotives were left over which were withdrawn within a year.