CHINA FOUND

I very much enjoyed the articles in SR486 about locomotives of the ‘Great War’, in particular the Great Central ‘8Ks’. However, I can shed some light on the locomotives that were sent to China, thanks to A Picture Album of Steam Locomotives in China (China Railway Publishing House).

Note in the image (below) that No. 101 has a replacement cab more suited to Northern China winters and a raised running plate, instead of the low GCR splashers.

The building details are clearly the export details and the ‘cancelled’ details of 1990 apply to many other locomotives in the book. They are obviously from a date when China Rail had an audit of spares it no longer needed, rather than withdrawal dates.

An Australian railway enthusiast reported seeing an ‘8K’ working in Shanghai docks in the 1950s.

However, this very thorough book carries no reference to the ‘Dean Goods’ 0-6-0s that were thought to have gone to China.

Perhaps they all went to an industrial railway and are therefore not in China Rail’s archives. U.W.R. Casebourne, Winchester