241 P 30 salvaged by the Swiss n.p.o. TMC. Photos courtesy TMC.
FRENCH STEAM LOCOMOTIVE VIRTUAL MUSEUM PICTURE GALLERY
S.N.C.F. 4 8 2, 241 P 1 to 30 (1948-1952): Improved version of the 241 C 1 of the P.L.M (herself being a redesigned 241 A 1 of 1925). Impressive but handicaped by insufficient rigidity of chassis resulting in frequent driving axles boxes overheat and boiler fractures, ashcan location giving the same result on bissel boxes, VERY difficult maintenance. Chapelon was horrified by those locomotives which constituted an absolute negation of his whole ressearch woks. Curiously, they were the last express steam locomotives to be withdrawn... Or may be was it perfectly logical, as the management of the S.N.C.F. had to justify that the cost of maintenance and operation of the compound engines was definitely much higher than those of the s.e. locomotives.
Happily however as so few french compound locomotives remain today, two of these good-looking machines have been salvaged, one of them by the Swiss T.M.C., 241 P 30 (initially she had been given back to its builder, Le Creusot, for obscure reasons by the S.N.C.F.).
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241 P 30 salvaged by the Swiss n.p.o. TMC. Photos courtesy TMC. |
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1997, 98, 99, 2000, 2001 by T. Stora. All rights reserved. Reproduction, translation, total or partial on any media absolutely forbidden without preliminary permission and agreement.