Find the issue of "Baldwin Locomotive" magazine that covered them and you will find you answer.

Kevin Kohls

Easier said than done.

We have some. Got a date for this order?

All that can be carried away has been stolen. Trucking interests are in bed with the government.

The Malaysia Railway class 56 steam locomotives were also fitted with poppet valves:



http://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/trains/malay02.htm

"All that can be carried away has been stolen. Trucking interests are in bed with the government."--Steve Singer

Sadly, this seems to be true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_trans ... _Guatemala

http://www.rrdc.com/op_guatemala_fvg.html

http://www.rrdc.com/news_GUA%20Sharehol ... %20Eng.pdf

http://www.rrdc.com/photo_gallery_guatemala_theft_1.htm

http://www.rrdc.com/photo_gallery_guatemala_theft_2.htm

Heartbreaking.

I hope the equipment is in good care; I seem to recall seeing a photo of a 12-wheel heavyweight steel car on this narrow-gauge road. If worst came to worst, it would be good to repatriate at least the steam engines and this car back to here.

Order date is 1928 per the SMU-DeGolyer purchaser index list.

The softcover booklet Central American Holiday has a roster (as I recall) by Gerald Best. I cannot locate my copy at this time.

QJdriver,

I/we can use your help here if you would like to participate.

Fellas, Here it is:

My first post already answered some of the questions that have been asked again in this thread, and I am going to hit a few other points that have been raised as well. You can find out a little bit about my railroad experiences working for three different employers in Guatemala by going to the website of Railroad Developement Corporation, http://www.rrdc.com and looking at the Ferrovias Guatemala website. Scroll down, and they have links to two of my articles originaly written for, but no longer archived by RyPN. I haven't reread my own articles lately, but I think there is a mention of the last time anybody tried to fire up the 153, which had been arranged especially for me.

First off, one of my aquantances who has been following the FIdeCA a lot longer than I have is Jim Dunlop. If you look in his FIdeCA article in Narrow Gauge and Shortline Gazette, September/October 1982, page 28, you will see the following in referrence to engines #150 - #153: "Baldwin built these engines with a Caprotti valve gear, but they were quickly converted to piston valves and the more popular Walschaert's valve gear." That sounds right TO ME, and it fits the facts as we know them.

NOW, let me say that correcting another person's post is most definitely NOT my idea of success. In this context, I think my FEGUA/FVG articles cover what that is pretty well. However, I want to point out that the abreviation "Cia" stands for "Compania", so an engine lettered "Cia Agricola" IS actually lettered for Compania Agricola de Guatemala. Apples versus apples.....

OK, Baldwin Locootive Works Magazine sounds like a good suggestion to me, I'd love to see what they have to say about this. If anybody can check the years 1927, 28, 29, that ought to turn up something interesting.

The magazine isn't going to tell how the experiment turned out in the long run. So far I have yet to see a picture of one of these engines actually working in Guatemala with Caprotti gear. That tells me something. The beautiful and most interesting picture contributed by Brian Norden shows the engine lettered IN ENGLISH "IRCA", something I never saw on any equipment in Guatemala !!! Not only that, but FIdeCA and FEGUA both used Railroad Roman style letters for locomotive tenders. The only FIdeCA inventory foto I have shows another Baldwin engine sitting on the dock in Barrios, this one has the same style lettering, but it says "Guatemala". Looks like Baldwin didn't know what lettering the FIdeCA actually wanted, so they just put something on there that looked logical for the builder's foto.

Anyhow, it looks to me like the engines were indeed equiped with the convertable style cylinder block that all of our heavy 2-8-0s used, only on the 2-8-2s they had what looks to be a poppet valve steam chest. While all our 2-8-0s #101-#125 were eventually rebuilt with superheaters and piston valve conversion kits, the 4 mikes look to have recieved brand new piston valve cylinder blocks and valve gear parts from Baldwin. My guess is that somebody with access to BLW records, and time to dig might be able to find an order for these parts placed by the FIdeCA with Baldwin in the years immediately following the purchase of these four engines.

Whether or not all these engines were converted using these factory blocks, I cannot say. When I inventoried the spares in Guatemala City for FVG in 1991, there were still two brand new piston valve cylinder blocks with saddles between the shop buildings. Whether or not these were for this same class or not, I do not know.

When I was instructed to locate the service records for engine #205 in the roundhouse foreman's office, I found only sketchy, simple paperwork covering the FEGUA period. The FIdeCA had elaborate forms for everything, however, so I would think that there would be something covering engines #150-#153 on file in the engineering department located above the trainshed. Because of brave and quick acting FEGUA employees, the mysterious depot fire in 1993 did not harm any of the antiques or the old engineering records from the FIdeCA days. Damage was confined to financial records and the old telegraph dispatcher's office.

As far as what is the gadgetry on the steam chest, my guess is that it must be some kind of mechanical lubricator, but I really don't know. If that flimsy looking linkage really was part of the valve drive or reversing gear, I can just hear the Spanish curses filling the air as the mechanical department guys looked at it for the first time. If they bought FOUR of those things, somebody's head must have rolled for it, and I bet it's quite a story. However, nobody I worked with started with the FIdeCA before the 50s, so I again don't know for sure.

However, the railroad is still there, and the remaining FEGUA employees run a museum in the old Guatemala City station and yards, and there is functioning track in the Guatemala City metro area. It's open every day and admission is free, and somebody could still go down there and dig around for some more complete answers. Try Googling Museo del Ferrocarril FEGUA.

While I am staying out of the FEGUA versus FVG debate, I'd like to say that the explanation offered in this thread for the government's attitude toward the railroad is both plausable and a new one on me. However, I sure do not know the whole story, and I was THERE....

That would be in the Pennsylvania State Archives "Baldwin collection" but only after 1938 I believe.

Does anyone on the board know what happened to the pre-1938 spares purchase records (if they exist in full).

QJ, were there any; Builders Drawings, Shop Drawigs, Blueprints, etc.. stored in the RY shops when you were there? There would be about 600 sheets for each locomotive design and they would seen in a stack of paper thats about a 4-5" tall and about 36" wide. The largest drawings (about 60) would have been "R" drawings, "R" meaning "Rolled", and they would be in a big 4"-5" dia roll thats also about 36" long. Did you see anything like this?

Was there an archive where the Gov. kept info (blueprints) that you had to request copies from, maybe the drawing set could still be held there?

The post 1938 Builders Drawings exist at (PN ST Archive) (we think!) , but anything pre-1938 is long gone except for a few percent of random material, that rarely helps on any project.

Sure, David,

They have an "Archivo de Planos" and it is loaded with treasure, or at least it was 10 years ago. It seems like they had a set of erecting cards for each class, as well as a couple giant hardbound books with the parts drawings for each class. These were coded so that they could order spares from Baldwin. I remember finding the parts books for the Sumpter Valley articulateds in 1993, for instance. These drawings were all jumbled up, and the room was crammed with FIdeCA office furniture. It's likely that the museum has cleaned this up, and in my opinion it is unlikely that they trashed anything interesting.

I take it you've never been to Guatemala !!! I say this because you can't just call somebody in a government office and order copies of stuff like steam engine drawings !!! I wish it were so, but going down there in person is your only viable option, and it is fun and interesting, anyhow.

I notice in my last post, that I made a typo, stating that I had inventoried spares for FVG in 1991. That of course should have said 2001.

Also, I can't really offer any specifics, but I should mention that Dr. John Kirchner has for years been rounding up material collected by himself and others with the intention of writing a blockbuster book on the FIdeCA/FEGUA/FVG as well as other railroads in Guatemala. When it finaly comes out, there's a pretty good chance he's going to have a good answer for any question that anybody can dream up....

And, please, sir, just call me Sammy. QJdriver is a made up, self bestowed, fantasy online nickname, not my real name. Sammy is my real nickname, at least it's the only one that RyPN can print.

Thanks to all for an interesting discussion.

VIVA VAPOR GUATEMALTECA

I just found another Central American narrow gauge Baldwin fitted with Caprotti valve gear.

"Ferrocarril de Antioquia", 3'+ 6" gauge, #49, 2-8-2 of Columbia. Page; 1401 in the 1930 Locomotive & Car Cyclopedia (hopefully Brian has a copy of this photo also!).
Just like the mention in the #152 photo, it says; "with Caprotti valve gear".

The #49 has only 19,500 Lbs of Tractive effort, so it would be small for 3' gauge, but for a 3'+6" gauge steam locomotive its tiny.

The Caprotti "part" of the steam chest looks the same as that of the #152, but the top of the steam chest also appears to have less width and less height than the #152 has. The cylinder block casting looks very similar to that of the #152.

Well, I do not seem to have a photo of the locomotive. Although I think I have another cache of BLW/Broadbelt prints.

I must admit that besides being involved with railway preservation (many years active with Orange Empire) I am fascinated with narrow gauge roads. Particular emphasis is western roads with active research into the Carson & Colorado/SPng. But I find the Central and South American roads very interesting and very fascinating.

I looked in Christopher Walker's Narrow Gauge in Columbia: Railways and Steam Locomotives and did not find a photo of the #49. This book out England did not even offer rosters.

I then looked at Gustavo Arias de Greiff's La Segunda Mula de Hierro / The Second Iron Mule subtitled History of the Columbia Railroads through their Locomotives. And in it I found a copy of the builder's photo. And a roster of locomotives.

By the way, the Antioquia was a 3'-0" gauge operation.



The number 618 refers to the line entry in the roster section of the book.
There we find that the c/n was 60585 and built in 1928

cylinders 16x20
diameter 40"
rigid wheel base 11'-0"
total wheel base 25'-0"
weight 85,700
total weight 109,500
T.E. 19,500

The note about the locomotive is "Con valvulas Caparotti. En 1985 tenia valvula piston."

There were a number of similar locomotives without the Caparotti valve gear that can in 1927 and 1928. From my reading of the notes some of these were kept for tourist trains in the mid-1990s.

To the best of my knowledge, two are still stored in Bogota:

#44 Baldwin 60008/1927
#48 Baldwin 60570/1928

The British also delved into Caprotti quite a bit. They put it on several orders of Black 5MTs and several other engines, the most famous of which would probably be the 71000 Duke of Gloucester. They recently overhauled it, and refined the cams, making it more efficient and more powerful. Here's the details about what they did and how Caprotti works:
http://www.71000trust.com/caprotti.html

One thing that I did not notice until after I had shut down for the night was that the next photo in The Second Iron Mule was a view of #49 in later years with piston valves.