In 1942, the East Indian Railway initially had four tank locomotives with a 2-6-2T wheel arrangement built for suburban services in Calcutta. These were supplied by the Vulcan Foundry in England and designated Class WV. A good compromise between speed and traction was found with a driving wheel diameter of 67 inches. They had a Belpaire firebox and compensating levers on the three coupled axles. However, it quickly turned out that the water and coal reserves were too small.

WV No. 2210 on a works photo

Vulcan Foundry

As a result, ten more locomotives were built in 1942, which had a bogie instead of the trailing axle, which meant that significantly larger supplies could be accommodated. With that, the WM class was born and the four WVs were also rebuilt into the WM. Only after the restructuring of the Indian Railways, each 30 more locomotives from Vulcan and Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns were built.

Using the same boiler, valve gear, trailing axle and other assemblies as the WP class Pacific locomotive built from 1947, the WG class Mikado was built from 1950 onwards. In order to be able to produce the quantities required for widespread use in front of freight trains, production was initially divided among several manufacturers in different countries.

The first 100 units came from the North British Locomotive Company in 1950. Later more came from there, others from the Vulcan Foundry, as well as from Belgium, Germany, Italy, Austria, the USA and Japan. Large-scale production only gradually got underway at the Chittaranjan Locomotive Works in India. Since, unlike at North British, they did not yet have the means to manufacture such a large three-shot boiler, the boiler was initially made with four shots. It was not until 1956 that production could be carried out completely in India, so that by 1970 a total of 1,908 of the 2,450 machines in total were built there.

The last WG built was also the last broad gauge steam locomotive built in India. In a nod to the last standard gauge Class 9F steam locomotive “Evening Star” built in Britain, it was called “Antim Sitara”, which has exactly the same meaning. The “Antim Sitara” is one of the nine that still exist today. Another, built in 1964, is still operational today.

The WP was created after the Second World War as the standard express locomotive of the Indian Railways. These Pacifics stood out because of their streamlining on the smokebox and were designed to be able to pull heavy trains at up to 120 km/h, even with low-calorie coal. Compared to the similarly powerful pre-war XC, they were a little heavier, but had a lower maximum axle load due to a different weight distribution.

They were initially faster than the existing diesel locomotives and pulled the most important express trains. Between 1947 and 1967, 755 locomotives were built, more than half of which came from North America. Others were made in Poland and Austria. It wasn't until 1963 that 259 were built in India, which were around five tons heavier. Most remained in service into the 1980s and some even survived into the 1990s.

These Madras & Southern Mahratta locomotives were basically based on the design of the Indian Standards Committee, but as an innovation they were operated with superheated steam and had a slightly reduced boiler pressure. The superheater was of the Schmidt design and had a proportionately larger heating surface than most British-built locomotives. After the four Stephenson locomotives from 1910, a total of 21 from Kitson and Armstrong-Whitworth came in 1919 with slightly altered boiler dimensions and a smaller superheater. Other, almost identical ones went to the Bombay, Baroda & Central India.

For the inclines over the Western Ghat, the Great Indian Peninsula Railway had initially used pairs of small 0-4-0T tank locomotives, coupled back-to-back. Five much more powerful 4-6-0ST saddle tank locomotives were built in 1863 to 1865 by Sharp, Stewart & Co. and numbered 109 to 113. They had been designed by J. Kershaw.

The broad gauge allowed the placement of inside cylinders with steam chests between them. Having inside and outside frames with coupling rods mounted on outside cranks, they were the only Indian broad gauge locomotives with this arrangement. As the bogie had an extremely short wheelbase of 3 ft 2 in and carried less weight in total than one driving axle, it was most likely used for better guidance in curves.

The firebox was wide with a water-filled separator in the middle and had two doors. On the image, one can see the sledge block brakes which were mounted between the driving wheels and directly acted on the rails. These are said to have been removed before entry into service. Since these locomotives were not identified as a success, no more were built and the last one was scrapped in 1886.