Loco 5461

Locomotive 5461

About the exhibit

Static exhibit
CLASS TF(939) (pre 1924), D53 (1924 classification)
TYPE - 2-8-0 GOODS STEAM ENGINE -- 190 IN CLASS
Climb into the cab. Hear the engine crew talk about preparing the loco for the day's work. See the seats and the tools they used.

Custodian

Transport Heritage NSW trading as Valley Heights Locomotive Depot Heritage Museum

History

5461 was built by Clyde Engineering (Granville) in 1916.

This class of locomotive was designed by the New South Wales railways as a modification of the earlier successful T(524) class. Thow's successor Lucy, introduced variations of features found in the locomotives of the Great Western Railway. These included an enlarged Belpaire firebox having the adjacent ring of the boiler barrel tapered down from the top to meet the cylindrical main portion and the running board raised clear of the coupled wheels, but the Allan straight link motion was retained. All the coupled wheels had flanges and a certain amount of side movement was given the middle pairs, with laterally operating knuckle join being provided in the middle section of the coupling rods. The Clyde engineering Company delivered the first engine in April 1912, and by November 1917 a total of 189 were in service. 160 from Clyde and 309 from Eveleigh Workshops.

This was the first numerically large class eventually to be equipped throughout with superheaters. In consequence it figured most prominently in early troubles met everywhere at the beginning of superheating and this gave the engine a bad name, there being a deficiency in balancing, a speed restriction was imposed to avoid rough riding and the resultant damage to track. Following later investigation into balancing problems generally with the use of a dyynamic balancing machine, 24 of the class were rebalanced, these being identifiable by a diagonal cross on the front buffer dream.

As the result of a spectacular runaway by No. 1122 on a heavy goods train from Lawson to Springwood in 1923, 5.5 miles (8.8 km) of track was destroyed, and with the locomotive having been placed in reverse and shedding its connecting and coupling rods, and together with the pounding from the resulting out of balance the engine was so damaged that it later was scrapped as being beyond economic repair.

From 1914, all the saturated engines were superheated, and the new engines had superheaters fitted when built. Following the removal of the knuckle joint from the coupling rods, and the flanges from the second coupled and driving wheels and the fitting of boilers standard for (D)50, (D)53 and (D)55 classes, they became most useful engines.