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Showing results for tags 'KLS/LBB Mallet locomotive.'.
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Hello Everyone It's been a fair while since I have posted a locomotive on this forum as I had taken a bit of a break from building in general. My latest build is the KLS/LBB Class 48 0-4-4-0 Mallet type locomotive, this loco has been on my to do list for a number of years and it's only until a few weeks ago that I decided to finally tackle her. I have always wanted to build a decent sized steam locomotive to use for freight trains on my LBB and had been inspired by a number of designs from the late 1800s, I wanted a locomotive with either 6 or 8 coupled wheels which created a bit of a problem as far as building it was concerned. The length of the locomotive would cause a number of issues which included the swing of the body on curves and the ability to pull stock in either direction, also there is the coupling of the wheelsets since I don't use custom rods and I dont like the way the wheels are coupled on designs such as the Emerald Night. During my seach for ideas I came across photos of the G9 Class 0-4-4-0 Mallet locos that were built for the KPEV during the 1890s http://www.flickr.co...aar/6776650649/ I was immediately hooked, given the fact the locomotive is articulated it gave me the ability to have decent lengthed locomotive that would be able to negotiate curves easily with a moderate swing on the body compared to a locomotive with a rigid wheelbase. Due to the extremely tight curvature of tracks on the KLS system all locomotive designs had been limited to having 4 coupled wheels for driving them, this caused a number of issues in particular the lack of growth potential and hauling power. Prior to 1895 freight services had been hauled by 0-4-0 and 2-4-0 Tender locomotives, these locomotives were initially up to the job but when freight traffic started to grow rapidly in the late 1880s the need for larger locomotives became apparent. The decision was then made to order a batch of 0-4-4-0 Mallet type locomotives to handle heavy freight services, their articulated frames meant that it was possible to run large locomotives that were capable of traversing the tight curves found on the KLS lines. These locomotives proved to be quite capable and were reasonably successful, their only problem was the high costs in maintaining them which in turn lead to only one batch of 8 locomotives being acquired. All members of the class worked up until the 1950s when steam was eventually replaced on the network by either electric or diesel traction, one locomotive has been kept in running order to preserve this rather unique class of locomotive.
