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Connections between Kalka-Simla Railway and N E Dundas??

John Peterson
 

Hello all,

The latest NG&IRMR arrived from the UK today with an article on the
Kalka-Simla Railway in India. What struck me was a photo of a series
of locos built by Sharp Stewart which looked identical to the G class
on the NE Dundus line in Tassie. The cylinder dimensions are the same
as is the weight. The Indian ones were built in 1902 so therefore
after the Tassie ones. Did they copy the Tassie design or was this a
standard type from the builder?

The article also describes a series of coaches which used the light
steel frames of the coach to help support a lightened frame to reduce
the dead weight hauled up the grade instead of a traditional frame.
Was this tried in Australia??

Cheers
John
The Bickfords <womloc4@...>
 

John,

I am pretty sure the G class 0-4-2T locos on the NE Dundas Tramway were based on a standard design from Sharp Stewart.
Similarly the locos for the Kalka Simla line.
The same magazine has an article about the building of the Towy Valley model railway. In that article the author refers to standard locos from Sharp Stewart. He has previously described the building of several models, influenced by the NED line Sharp Stewarts and those in India.

The National Archives digital plans collection of NED rollingstock includes a proposal drawing for the G class that has an open cab, similar to the Darjeeling locos ie roof on posts.
The main wheelbase of the G class and the Darjeeling locos is almost identical.
The decision to build the NED line at 2 foot gauge was sure to have been influenced by technical engineering papers on similar lines in India.

cheers,
Mike Bickford
Berowra Heights NSW

----- Original Message -----
From: "crannyjohn" <peterson.john.j@...>
To: <LRRSA@...>
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 8:41 PM
Subject: [LRRSA] Connections between Kalka-Simla Railway and N E Dundas??


Hello all,

The latest NG&IRMR arrived from the UK today with an article on the
Kalka-Simla Railway in India. What struck me was a photo of a series
of locos built by Sharp Stewart which looked identical to the G class
on the NE Dundus line in Tassie. The cylinder dimensions are the same
as is the weight. The Indian ones were built in 1902 so therefore
after the Tassie ones. Did they copy the Tassie design or was this a
standard type from the builder?

The article also describes a series of coaches which used the light
steel frames of the coach to help support a lightened frame to reduce
the dead weight hauled up the grade instead of a traditional frame.
Was this tried in Australia??

Cheers
John
Michael J
 

----- Original Message -----
From: The Bickfords [mailto:womloc4@...]


I am pretty sure the G class 0-4-2T locos on the NE Dundas Tramway were
based on a standard design from Sharp Stewart.
Similarly the locos for the Kalka Simla line.
Also the L class on the Ceylon Railways. They were all very similar locos but with enough detail differences to see they were all individual designs. I've got a copy of the North British narrow gauge loco catalogue, which includes details of all of them. There was also a very similar, but much smaller model produced for another Indian narrow gauge line.

The main wheelbase of the G class and the Darjeeling locos is almost
identical.
The first two locos on the Kalka-Simla line were Darjeeling locos converted to 2'6" gauge.

The decision to build the NED line at 2 foot gauge was sure to have been
influenced by technical engineering papers on similar lines in India.
Maybe. The VR certainly got papers on Indian NG lines, which affected the decision to build in 2'6" gauge. The Kalka-Simla was started in 2' gauge but converted to 2'6" gauge during construction.

Cheers,

Michael

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