Victorian Railways X Class - History

History

The X class was a development of the earlier C class 2-8-0 goods locomotive, designed to be gauge convertible from 5 feet 3 inches (1,600 mm) broad gauge to 4 feet 8+1⁄₂ inches (1,435 mm) standard gauge in the event of the Victorian Railways network being converted to standard gauge. (The C class, with a narrow firebox between the frames, could not be easily converted.)

The 2-8-2 layout of the X class allowed a wide, deep firebox and large, free steaming boiler. This improved on some key shortcomings of the C class, which were regarded as poor steaming and featured a very long 9 ft 7 in (292 cm) manually stoked firebox that was difficult to fire and prone to clinkering. The X class was also equipped with a much larger capacity tender of similar design to the S class Pacific introduced in 1928, enabling through runs from Melbourne to Bendigo without intermediate stops to restock the tender.

All but two of the X class (X 35 & 36) featured a Franklin Booster engine on the trailing truck axle, which allowed an additional 9,000 lbf (40 kN) tractive effort at starting and low speeds to increase the hauling power of the locomotive. X 35 eventually gained the booster engine that had been originally fitted to light Mikado N 110 in 1927.