Special Portuguese ‘B12’ is freed - but it’s still in a fix
More than a year after being rescued from falling to certain doom at the bottom of a 150-foot precipice, unique Portuguese ‘B12’ lookalike No. 282 and five other historic locomotives remain stuck in limbo. 1910-built No. 282, the last example of its Henschel design, was craned away from its precarious position at the edge of a crumbling embankment at Vila Nova de Gaia in October 2014, along with two other unique survivors - outside-cylindered 4-6-0 No. 294 and 2-8-0 No. 701 - a pair of 2-8-4Ts and a 2-6-4T. But Steam Railway reader Michael Williams, who originally alerted the magazine to the locomotives’ plight, reports: “The inside and outside motion on the engines is all but complete - but thereby hangs the next problem. The slidebars and piston rods are red raw with 28 years of rust, so the crossheads and pistons are seized solid. The locomotives still cannot be towed to a place of safety. “Until four or five years ago wood for fuel was far more valuable in Portugal than brass - so the locomotives still had their whistles but had lost their cab roofs and footplates. Now, with the intervention of Chinese metal salvage merchants, thieves are smashing components off with sledgehammers. “Dropping the motion on a steam locomotive is not rocket science - British enthusiasts recovered 213 engines from Barry in far worse condition - but the Portuguese authorities have neither the knowhow or the wherewithal to do this job.” It was expected that Nos. 282, 294 and 701 were destined for the new National Railway Museum in Entroncamento, but it is understood that the three remaining spaces there are now reserved for three other locomotives to be moved from the nearby Railway Training School. Steam Railway contacted the museum in November to ask whether the Vila Nova de Gaia locomotives have been signed over by their owners, CP (Portuguese Railways) but has received no response. Said Mr Williams: “If CP or the museum do not have the will or the money, they should be asking for outside assistance so that these machines can be moved to safety.”