QUOTE: More Briti***han anything that ran in Britain, this archetypal Mail Engine gave over 75 years of service and is still actively in use. This is the British Engineering Standards Association “Heavy Passenger” 4-6-0, introduced in 1905, of which a number (but not one of the originals) are still in passenger service in India at the time of writing (1987). The railways of India were developed mainly by private enterprise under a concession system whereby the then British Government of India guaranteed a modest return on investment in return for a measure of control, as well as eventual ownership. The government felt that one of their perquisites was to set standards and, having made rather a mess of the gauge question, made up for it with an excellent job of wetting out a range of standards designs for locomotives. The first BESA 4-6-0s were solid hunks of sound engineering, bigger when introduced than almost anything that ran in the same country. Their closest relations at home seem to have been some 4-6-0s built in 19-3 for the Glasgow & South Western Railway by the North British Locomotive Co. of Glasgow. NGL were to supply the first standard 4-6-0s to India. The BESA 4-6-0s stayed in top-line work even after their successors the India Railway Standard (IRS), XA and XB 4-6-2s had arrived in the mid-1920s, because of unsatisfactory qualities amongst the new arrivals. The great success of the BESA designs seems to lie in the fact that they were taken from British practice as it existed, with the difference that both average and maximum speeds in India were 25 per cent lower than at home while loads were about the same.
QUOTE: Originally posted by siberianmo Good Morning on this Christmas Eve 2005! Today and into the following week, there will be ENCORE! presentations on this thread. So if you missed any the first time, here's a chance to catch up. . . . . . . . . . . ENCORE! #1 . . . . . . . . . PASSENGER TRAIN NOSTALGIA #1 Here’s something to ponder with regard to our appreciation and fascination with Classic Trains. Check this out ……. Many of the passenger railroads we’ve heard of and perhaps traveled aboard, had their start up in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. Check out these names of perhaps the best known: Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe (1863) Atlantic Coast Line (1900) Baltimore & Ohio (1827) #1 Boston & Maine (1835) Canadian Pacific (1881) Chesapeake & Ohio (1867) Chicago & Northwestern (1859) Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (1855) Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul (“The Milwaukee Road,” 1874) Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific (1866) Erie (1859) Great Northern (1889) Illinois Central (1851) Kansas City Southern (1900) Lehigh Valley (1855) Louisville & Nashville (1850) Missouri Pacific (1879) New York Central (1914, although the formal adoption of that name came later) New York, Chicago & St. Louis (“Nickel Plate Road,” 1881) Norfolk & Western (1881) Northern Pacific (1864) Pennsylvania Railroad (1846) Seaboard Air Line (1900) Southern Pacific (1884) Southern Railway (1887) Union Pacific (1862) Wabash (1877) Western Pacific (1903) [source:] The American Passenger Train Enjoy! [tup] Tom[4:-)][oX)]
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