The BC class comprised a single steam locomotive that operated on New Zealand's national rail network. Built for the Wellington and Manawatu Railway (WMR) and classified as No. 17, it passed into the ownership of the New Zealand Railways Department (NZR) when the government purchased the WMR in December 1908, and it was then that it acquired the BC classification as BC 463.[2]
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Introduction edit
The WMR ordered No.17 from the Baldwin Locomotive Works. It entered service on 10 June 1902 and was at the time the most powerful locomotive to operate in the country. No.17 was the only 2-8-2 "Mikado" to run in New Zealand. At the time of its arrival, it was the largest engine in the country. It was a Vauclain compound, and its trailing truck bore similarities to the Q class, the world's first 4-6-2 "Pacific" type then under construction by Baldwin for NZR.[3]
The Baldwin Locomotive Works had taken the design of the locomotive almost directly from the original Mikado, that they built for the Nippon Railway of Japan in 1897. No. 17 was the Japanese engine fitted with a Q class boiler. It was then only the third Mikado to be built in the world.
The locomotive was designed to haul trains on the WMR's steep main line between Wellington and Paekākāriki, and it proved capable of hauling a 280-ton freight train up the steep grades. This line became the southern portion of the North Island Main Trunk Railway when acquired by NZR in 1908.
Withdrawal edit
No.17/BC 463 worked this line its entire life. It operated for nearly two decades in NZR's ownership until it was withdrawn on 31 March 1927 along with fellow surviving WMR locomotives when NZR adopted a rapid locomotive standardisation plan in the 1920s.[3] It did not survive to be preserved. A decade after it was withdrawn, the steepest section of its former line was bypassed by the Tawa Flat deviation and became the Johnsonville Branch.
See also edit
References edit
Citations edit
- ^ "Bc class steam locomotive, New Zealand Railways number 463 (2-8-2)". National Library of New Zealand. Retrieved 20 March 2019.
- ^ "Class BC". New Zealand Steam. Retrieved 20 March 2019.
- ^ a b Palmer & Stewart 1965, p. 96.
Bibliography edit
- Cassells, KR (Ken) (1994). Uncommon Carrier - The History of the Wellington & Manawatu Railway Company, 1882-1908. New Zealand Railway and Locomotive Society. ISBN 0908573634.
- Hoy, Douglas (1972). West of the Tararuas: An Illustrated History of the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Co. Wellington: Southern Press.
- Millar, Sean (2011). The NZR Steam Locomotive. Wellington: New Zealand Railway and Locomotive Society. ISBN 978-0-908573-89-9.
- Palmer, A. N.; Stewart, W. W. (1965). Cavalcade of New Zealand Locomotives. Wellington: A H. & A W. Reed. ISBN 978-0-207-94500-7.
- Stewart, W. W. (1974). When Steam was King. Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed Ltd. ISBN 978-0-589-00382-1.