South Coast Steam and S160 3278

Thanks for your caution Steve, much appreciated.

 

The image of 2253 under restoration doesn't work for me sadly. Have there been any other pics floating about?

 

Where this picture of 2253? Can't say i've seen anything other than a video of 6046 passing it in the headshunt at Grosmont.

 

The S160's weren't just stored in the U.K. prior to D-Day but were valued additions to our overworked 'native' motive power. The first S160 handed over (to the LNER) was USATC 1604 on 11/12/42. It was followed by a further 167 locos on the LNER, 50 on the LMS, 6 on the SR and 174 on the GWR. Although the last one handed over was in July 1944, they were all handed back to the U.S. Army two months later. Prior to their transfer to Europe many S160's were stored, under armed guard, in the South Wales valleys. Further S160's were sent direct to Europe from the U.S. in the months following D-Day. Ray.

 

The amount of them built and scale of movement for the S160's seems incredible. According to Wikipedia in addition to the British examples which were deported post D-Day.

Austria - 30
Czechoslovakia - 80
France - 121
Germany - 40 (all sent to Hungary)
Greece - 27 (and then additional 25 from Italy)
Hungary - 510 (484 put into service. 26 cannibalised for spares)
Italy - 244 (plus 4 salavaged from a suken ship)
Poland - 75 (from UNRRA plus another 500 from USATC. One converted to a tank engine)
Soviet Union - 200 (1-90 from Baldwin and 91-200 from ALCO and as I understand it 5 lost in transit, 1 remained in USA)
Spain - 6 (Alaska Railroad sold to them in 1958)
Turkey - 50
Yugoslavia - 80
Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia all had locos but ended up in Italy
Mexico - 10
Peru - 2
USA - unknown amount with USATC and various military transportation units
China - unknown number
India - 60
Korea (North and South) - unknown number

 

An S160 tank engine! blimey!

Edit: Just found a picture - what a monster!

 

Only in Poland would they come up with that.

 

When you look at the actual loco numbers you'll find that many of the above locos ARE the locos formerly in Britain, not "in addition to". Several locos also appear more than once e.g. 1601/6/8/10 all ex GWR went to the SNCF. USATC # 1610 also appears in Hungary possibly via DB! R. Tourret's USATC locomotives explains a lot of it as does "Over Here" - if you can get hold of a copy. Hope this clarifies the situation - there sure was a lot of S160's and their close relatives but it wasn't quite as simple as Wackipedia makes out. Ray.

 

i Like the look of that ! abit more thought into the aesthetics of the tanks and it would be easier on the eye
a 2-8-2 would be more practical but perhaps not easy to achieve - 8f Mikado Tank - Yay !"

 

That boiler had had some SERIOUS surgery! Wide firebox has gone, replaced by the cab and presumably barrel shortened. Must have been a shunter - did they have hump yards over there?

 

OK I'm getting confused. This thread started off tracking the whereabouts of 3278 ex-Portland, but has now morphed, via 6046 & 5197 into what's happening to 2253 ex-NYMR.

So if I've got this right, 3278, owner unknown, is now at Long Marston, onward destination unknown; 6046 owned by Greg Wilson is on loan the NVR (and according to SR will be replaced there by his 5197 next year once its overhaul is completed) and 2253, owned by Peter Best, is heading to the NRM for display. For completeness, 5820 is operational at the KWVR. Correct?

 

.......plus the parts of 2 1/2 s160's at Ruddington. Corb's "monster" was Tkr 55. 1 rebuilt from an S160 in 1957. My Polish is limited to about half a dozen words but if I understand correctly the loco was built using a modified Tkt48 boiler, cab, bunker etc. Ray.

 

It certainly has a lot of tkt DNA in it there.
I can only imagine that was for industrial use (industrials carried pkp fleet numbers)
Do you have a link for that ? My polish isn't bad but my wife's is fluent...

 

So someone with the correct data in hand should fix the Wikipedia entry! (That is the whole concept of Wikipedia, right?)

Noel

 

Sorry but there isn't a "link". The info came from a book "Parawozy Kolei Polskich" which I picked up in Poland in 1979. I'll gladly send you a scan of the page but it won't be for a few weeks until my better half returns from holiday as her P.C. is hooked up to the scanner and I'm only 'passed out' on the laptop! Remind me in 3 weeks if I've forgotten. I'm not sure that the class was primarily intended for industrial use - there's something stirring in the grey matter that it was an attempt to use up the chassis of S160's which had knackered boilers. AFAIK the idea was dropped after producing the prototype Tkr55.1. Cheers Ray.

 

Ah the famous "someone" ! I'm afraid I don't rely on Wikipedia for accurate information and don't intend to copy out the details of several thousand S160's from Tourret's book. Maybe I'm just old fashioned but prefer to know who's research I'm relying on and support the author by buying his book.. If you've got a specific question I'll gladly try to look it up for you. Ray.

 

Neither do I! The theory these days is that everything there is supposed to be footnoted, so that nobody has to take anything there on faith - they can go look up the original refererence. Nice theory, but you know what Yogi Berra said about theory and practise...

Didn't say you should. But if there's something there that's actively wrong, it would be useful to remove it.

Noel

 

I don't know if there is anything actively wrong in the Wikipedia information. I simply said that the assumption that those listed were "in addition to the British examples" was incorrect. Whether that was Wikipedia's incorrect assumption or that of the poster I do not know. The totals listed for each country may be correct but as many locos appeared in several countries' lists at different times the only way to correct this would be to list each loco individually and follow its movements - a mammoth task even if the information was available - hence my comment. Ray.

 

If you want something a bit better than "Wiki-a bloke down the pub told me- pedia" about the S160s, try www.alaskarails.org, the website for Alaska RR S160 #557, which has a more informed interpretation of Tourette's very long list of numbers and a lot of carefully researched history and engineering information. Anyone with aspirations to track each and every S160 down the years might be better advised to try Dignitas...these engines have tended to be at their best in desperate situations where civic society and administration has collapsed, record keeping has been a low priority, and photography a criminal offence.

Coupled with the American practise of defining an engine by the boiler number while almost everyone else who acquired them uses the frame number and you have a massive jigsaw with most of the edge pieces missing. What is beyond peradventure is the massive contribution these engines made to the outcome of WW2 and the subsequent reconstruction of many of the shattered participant nations. That is what makes them so special.

 

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