120 Cramptons were built between 1849 & 1860 for the 3 companies that used them with just under half going to the Nord who first ordered them. Here they lasted in passenger service for over 30 years until the growing train weights exceeded their adhesion & steaming capacities. The PLM used them for the least time due to the generally more mountainous nature of their system and having sold 11 to the CF de l’Est in 1869 they had withdrawn or sold the remainder by 1880. Those already supplied new to the Est along with those purchased from the PLM had the longest working lives with most achieving around 50 years service. Number 80 ‘Le Continent’ built for the CF Paris - Strasbourg by Cail in 1852 survives to this day, having been renovated at Epernay Works in 1924 for excursion use and is now located in Mulhouse museum.

The Crampton Locomotive, was not very well-known in Britain or America, but was a great success in France and Germany. It was created by Thomas Crampton, an Englishman, and the first example was built at Whitehaven for Belgium in 1846. The key element of the design was the placing of the single driving axle behind the firebox, enabling large driving wheels to co-exist with a large low-placed boiler. In the long term, this solution seems less important than Crampton's adoption of wide steam passages, generous bearing surfaces, and large heating surfaces, and it was these three features rather than the position of the driving axle that ensured the high-speed qualities of his locomotives. source www.steamindex.com

The latter characteristics were among the features developed on by French Engineers culminating in the world famous rebuild work undertaken on the Paris-Orleans pacifics by that railway’s Chief Mechanical Engineer at the time M André Chapelon, arguably the world’s best steam locomotive designer at least up until the demise of steam in Western Europe.

A major feature in the development of French locomotive design was the application of compounding principles, the re-use of exhaust steam from the high pressure cylinder in a low pressure one making greater use of the expansive nature of steam resulting in greater fuel economy. The theory was first converted into practice in France by Anatole Mallet when he modified 2 0-4-2 tanks owned by the CF de Bayonne a Biarritz in 1876 with the two simple expansion cylinders being replaced by a high pressure one on one side and a low pressure one on the other. The idea did not immediately catch on at home in France and for nearly a decade it was left to Von Borries in Germany & Webb in England to develop main line compound locomotives. The next compound locomotive in France was a Webb type 3 cylinder machine purchased for trials from Sharp Stewart in Manchester by the CF de l’Ouest in 1884 . This did not prove successful in that the economy achieved was only 10% as opposed to the 16% claimed by Webb and its speed in traffic did not match that being achieved by the company’s simple expansion engines. So the baton then passed to the Nord.

In 1885 Société Alsacienne de Construction Mécaniques (SACM) built the first 4 cylinder compound in France for the Nord jointly designed by the manufacturer’s chief engineer, English born Alfred de Glehn, and Gaston du Busquet then head of the Nord’s works at Hellemmes. This was 2-2-2-2 number 701 with the two pairs of drivers not coupled and the two outside high pressure driving the front pair and the two inside low pressure cylinders driving the rear pair. This prototype was rebuilt as a 4-2-2-2 and survived in this form so that she is now also on display in the museum at Mulhouse. Du Busquet became the Chief Engineer of the Nord in 1890 and the development of the compounds then proceeded apace with the first 4-4-0 produced in 1891 to the extent that by the time he was succeeded by Georges Asselin in 1910 the Nord had 112 compounds in service 52 4-4-0s, 35 4-4-2s & 25 4-6-0s, with a pair of experimental 4-6-4s on the drawing board. The PLM were only a couple of years behind the Nord in producing their first prototype 4 cylinder compound locomotives and 1910 had produced 160 production 4-4-0s, 20 4-4-2s, 297 0-8-0s, 135 4-6-0s and around 200 4-8-0s. The other French main line companies also acquired them in large numbers and with the economies & performances achieved from these types they soon came to the attention of the wider world.

Stepping back once more to the era of Jules Petiet as Chief Engineer of the CF du Nord, a tribute to him written by Dr John Davies in his locomotive list for the company refers to another development in locomotive design begun in France that was to have wide implications for the world at large for nearly a century and the paragraph is quoted in full below with its reference to the duplex number 601 illustrated above.

“Petiet died of apoplexy on 29/1/1871 and left the NORD with 841 locos. It seems clear that he was far ahead of his time. While he had a few failures, the steam drier was to develop into the modern superheater, the ‘duplex’ 0-6-6-0 into the Meyer and later Garratt (once the idea of articulation had been worked out) and large grates and large steam passages later became the norm for efficient locomotives. Moreover, his early use of the Belpaire firebox predated its general use on the Etat Belge by its own inventor, who was Chief Engineer of that line.”

It was in 1889 that Anatole Mallet designed & built the first example of the locomotive type that was forever to bear his name, a machine with two engine units mounted under a single boiler with leading unit built on its own separate frame with a pivot upon which the front end of the boiler rested. After a few years gestation, ongoing development of the Mallet then basically took two different paths. In most of the world it was used on colonial & narrow gauge railways where operating conditions demanded a high power output from a machine combining a relatively low axle weight with the ability to negotiate sharp curves, something that a Mallet with many axles and a flexible wheelbase was ideal for. In many ways its development in this role was overtaken about 30 years later by the development of the Garratt which allowed a larger boiler to be used without prejudicing the axle weight & curvature restrictions. It was in the United States however that the development of the Mallet was to make the biggest impression on the public imagination with their development on to become the heaviest & most powerful locomotives ever built. Here they were developed to run on an existing system of main lines that were generally well aligned and had fairly generous existing axle load limits.

Wartime relocations

Another significant factor that impacted on the locomotive types in use in France were the two World Wars and right up to end of steam operations locomotives were in use that were in France as a result of both conflicts; either left behind by the occupying forces or constructed abroad as the result of the reduced capacity of French manufacturers to construct new locomotives. The North American built 141R 2-8-2s operated most of the traffic in the last few years as already mentioned and there were also a handful of class 140C 2-8-0s in use some of which had been built North British & Vulcan Foundry during and immediately after WW1.

Finally above right is an example of a 141R 2-8-2 in service, a member of the class that increasingly came to dominate steam powered operations in the period between the end of WW2 and the the final elimination of steam traction. Here class 141R 2-8-2 number 141R 73 departs Boulogne Maritime with a boat train on 5th July 1970.
Photo : Norman Glover