RUSSIAN RAILWAY GROUP - PAGE 6C Kazan Railway 4-6-0

Russian Railways Group

The Moscow-Kazan Railway Superheater Class B^K 4-6-0s of 1907

By Robert Hendry

Moscow-Kazan Railway Class B^K 4-6-0 No 149 Robert Hendry Collection

Pages 6A & 6B examined the development of the Moscow-Kazan Railway class A^N 0-8-0s of 1908. This section examines the evolution of another important Kazan locomotive type, developed under the locomotive engineer, E Noltein.

The first purpose-built superheater passenger locomotive on the Kazan Railway was B^P class 4-6-0 No 181, ordered by the company on 12 October 1901, and completed by Kolomna works in 1902. They were amongst the earliest superheated locomotives built anywhere in the world, and were fitted with the early version of the Schmidt smokebox superheater, in which the tubes were contained within a casing mounted low in the smokebox. Based on studies by the Superintendent of the Moscow running sheds, Mr R Haenelt, No 181 showed an 8% saving in fuel compared to the older compound 4-6-0s. Noltein would have liked a little more time for testing, but six months after No 181 entered traffic, the railway administration demanded eight more passenger engines. Although aware of some of the shortcomings of No 181, Noltein felt it was better to add further superheater 4-6-0s, rather than multiplying the existing compounds. By this time, Schmidt had moved away from his earlier ideas of smokebox superheaters to placing superheater tubes within the boiler, offering a higher degree of superheating. Such was the urgency of the order that rather than accept the delays inherent in a major redesign, the new engines, No’s 182-189 of 1904, were only altered in minor ways.

By 1906, the Kazan management were calling for more passenger locomotives, but this time Noltein had time to prepare a markedly improved design. The background story to these engines is remarkable. In 1904, Russia was embroiled into the catastrophic war with Japan which shattered Russian power in the far east, and seriously damaged the prestige of the Autocracy. On 5 January 1905, Imperial troops opened fire on demonstrators outside the Winter palace in St Petersburg. As unrest deepened, a wave of strikes swept the country, culminating in a general strike and a new constitution which went some way towards creating a constitutional monarchy. With liberal opinion mollified, the authorities were free to move on the more extremist protesters, which included the fledgling Bolsheviks in towns, and Social Revolutionaries in the countryside. Unrest remained high through much of 1906. During the year, the Kazan Railway took delivery of 30 superheater 0-6-6-0 Mallets, and within weeks, it became clear that all was not well with the new engines. They could haul considerable loads, but far from the economies associated with superheater designs, they actually burned over 20% more fuel than the wet steam classes they replaced. Critics of superheating pounced on their manifest weaknesses, and Noltein’s own position was under threat for some time. The unsettled state of the country precluded any serious studies on the cause of the disappointing performance, but in the face of a strong lobby advocating a return to compounds, Noltein stubbornly emphasized that it was not superheating but other defects that had caused the problem.

The new locomotives were required to haul a 500 ton passenger train at 35 kmph (21 mph), even in winter, on a 1 in 100 grade with 32 chain radius curves. Noltein retained the 1700mm (5ft 7ins) driving wheels of the B^P class, but increased the cylinder diameter by 15% to 575 mm, and increased the stroke by 10%. The total heating surface and grate area were also increased, and the smokebox tube nest with its low superheat had been replaced by a much more efficient flue tube superheater. The Kazan locomotives drew heavily on Garbe’s celebrated Prussian P8 4-6-0s of the KPEV. All the portents were good, and ten class B^K 4-6-0s were delivered by Kolomna in 1907. For a few weeks all was well, but complaints began to pour in from the running sheds. The wear on the piston rings was excessive, and like the Fowler “Royal Scot” 4-6-0s in their early days, performance rapidly deteriorated. With massive steam leakage, water and fuel consumption figures rocketed, and worse still, the cast iron piston rings started breaking up. Some of the critics who had opposed superheating were openly saying that the new engines could not meet the performance targets, and were much poorer that the popular and highly capable class B^G compounds. With a second serious design failure in a few months, Noltein faced a crisis. In conjunction with C Gerstung, the chief engineer at Kolomna, and P Krassowsky, the assistant locomotive inspector on the Kazan Railway, the cause of the problem was identified. The piston rings had been made of an unsuitable cast iron, and piston valve leakage was reaching chronic proportions. All ten engines were called into the works for alterations.

The results were impressive, and from burning far more Naptha that the compounds, in the last six months of 1908, the superheaters outperformed the compounds, yielding as much as an 8% monthly fuel economy on three occasions. Figures varied widely, from the 36.67 lbs of Naptha per loco mile of September 1908, to 47.41 lbs in the bad weather in December. For those interested in the Russian measurements, the corresponding figures were 67.31 poods of naptha per 100 versts run in September, and 87.01 in December.

Whilst double heading had often been necessary with the compounds, the B^Ks largely eliminated double heading, and on many occasions were working at well below their optimum power output, with a throttling effect on steam. On 9/10 September 1909, comparative trials were arranged between B^G 129 and B^K 145 on regular services between Rusaewka and Arapowo. The B^G hauled the heavier train, 313 tons, as opposed to 285 tons, but over the whole distance, the superheater class showed a 24.75% saving of water, and a 16% saving in naptha. As train loads increased towards 360 tons, the load limit for the compounds, the superheater 4-6-0s showed to best advantage, and with the elimination of double heading, the overall fuel economy stabilized at around 14-18% by the start of 1910. Unlike the compounds, which had little reserve to make up time, the superheaters had sufficient margin to regain time, improving punctuality.

The compounds had cost 41,785 roubles (£4492), and the larger and much more powerful B^Ks cost just 47,155 roubles (£5,069), but offered more than a 75% increase in tractive effort.

One peculiarity of the centrally administered Czarist railway system was that many different railways could end up buying the same class of engine, if it was adopted as a State standard class. This happened with the B^K. Further batches were supplied in 1907 to the Zabaikal, Perm, and Moscow-Kiev-Voronezh lines, and in 1909 to the Perm, Syzran-Vyazma, Samara-Zlatoust, Catherine, and Yugo- Zapadny lines. Later deliveries went to the Siberian and to the South Eastern Railways, giving them a wide geographical spread.

Under the 1912 system, the Superheaters became Class K. In common with the later K^U class of 1911-1913, they represented the final developments of steam design on the Moscow-Kazan line, but faced increasing competition from the S class 2-6-2, the first of which appeared in 1910. By the 1930s, most of the engines in Western Russia had moved to the Far Eastern sections of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Although the whole of the original and later K^U series were still in stock in 1939, the last of the original series disappeared in the early to mid fifties, the later class lingering on into the early sixties.

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Contact address hendry@hillsidefilms.fsnet.co.uk

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