Indian BESA Locomotives

The BESA locomotives were a series of standardised steam locomotive designs developed by the British Engineering Standards Association (BESA) (formerly the Engineering Standards Committee) for broad and metre gauge railways in British India. Three reports were issued by the BESA in 1903, 1907, and 1909, during which the locomotive designs of the BESA were outlined and specified. The designs were later superseded by the Indian Railway Standard (IRS) series designs, suited to burn low-quality Indian coal.

Background At the turn of the 20th century, the British Indian railways experienced an increase of rail traffic alongside exponential expansion, which necessitated an increased need for more motive power from the railways. This affected British locomotive manufacturers who could not keep up with an increased demand for motive power, as British locomotive builders were occupied with fulfilling orders for other railways and could not readily fulfill the growing need for locomotives in British India. Another contributing factor cited as to why British locootive builders could not readily meet the motive power demand was the multiplicity of different locomotive classes which varied in design of the different railways. This led to British Indian railways outsourcing production of locomotives to non-British companies, and complaints arose from British locomotive manufacturers who took issue to the situation.

Amidst this developing situation, a locomotive committee, formed from managers of British locomotive builders was created by the Engineering Standards Committee on request of the British Indian government, representing firms such as Beyer Peacock, Kitson, North British, and Vulcan, which aimed to improve the efficiency of British Indian railway operations through developing standardised locomotive designs for the country's railways.

History Development The first report of the Committee on British Indian railway locomotives was introduced in 1903 (albeit not published until 1905), with an initial compilation of two broad gauge locomotives, an goods and passenger, and three metre gauge standard designs, a goods, and a mixed traffic and passenger, both s. In 1907, the Committee convened again, introducing four more broad gauge locomotives, three tender, which were the and the 4-6-0 mail engines, the goods, and one tank locomotive, which was the passenger. The 2-8-0 goods was given two design options of differing driving wheel diameters, one with 61 1/2 in driving wheels and one with 56 in driving wheels.

March of 1919 was when the third and final report of the Committee was issued, introducing a metre gauge locomotive. The design option of the 2-8-0 goods engine with the 61 1/2 in driving wheels had been omitted. The same report provisioned larger boilers from the 2-6-4T tank engines to be used on the 4-4-0 and 0-6-0 locomotives of the first report, alongside vacuum brakes for the locomotives designed by the Committee on both engine and tender, with handbrake operation available on tenders.

The final locomotive designed by the Committee was a locomotive, a late addition to the third report. The locomotive was based on a design built in 1921 for the Bengal Nagpur Railway (BNR), incorporating parts from other Committee-designed locomotives, namely the driving cylinders of the 2-8-0 goods engines (HG) and the boilers of the 2-6-4T tank engines (PT).

The Indian Railway Standards (IRS) designs of 1928 superseded these Committee-design locomotives, with more improved designs, namely increased grate areas tailored to low-quality Indian coal.

Service Examples of the broad gauge 4-6-0 mail engine were still in service on Indian railways as late as the 1980s. These engines were considered successful and orders for this design of engines were placed up to around 1950.

Designs

The BESA locomotives originally were designed as saturated steam locomotives, and in 1912 provisions for superheating were drawn up. Locomotives built new with superheating were suffixed with "S" and retrofitted locomotives for superheating were suffixed with "C".

+Broad gauge designsClassDescriptionWheel arrangementDriving wheel diameterAxle loadWeightPictureSPStandard Passenger4-4-074 in (1800 mm)16.5 t92 tSGStandard Goods0-6-061 in (1676 mm)16.5 t89 tPTPassenger Tank2-6-4T61 in (1676 mm)15 t77 tHPHeavy Passenger4-6-074 in (1880 mm)16.8 t107 tAPAtlantic Passenger4-4-278 in (1980 mm)17.5 t106 tHG, 61 ½ in driving wheelsHeavy Goods2-8-061 ½ in (1560 mm)16.3 t119 tHG, 56 in driving wheelsHeavy Goods2-8-056 in (1435 mm)15.7 t117 tHTHeavy Tank2-8-2T51 in 17.3 t92 t

+Metre gauge designsClassDescriptionWheel arrangementDrivingwheel diameterAxle loadWeightPicturePPassenger locomotive4-6-057 in (1450 mm)8.7 t34.5 tMMixed-traffic locomotive4-6-048 in (1220 mm)8.7 t33.3 (locomotive)GGoods locomotive4-8-043 in (1090 mm)8 t40.6 t (locomotive)TTank locomotive2-6-2T43 in (1090 mm)9.3 t43.7 t (locomotive)

Indian BESA Locomotives

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