The PC class was a type of

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in Ea ...

passenger

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

Iraqi State Railways Iraqi Republic Railways Company (IRR; ar, الشركة العامة لسكك الحديد العراقية) is the national railway operator in Iraq. Network IRR comprises of . IRR has one international interchange, with Chemins de Fer Syrien ...

. In 1940 the ISR completed the Baghdad Railway between

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

and Tel Kotchek on the border with

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

, enabling the ''Taurus Express'' to start running between

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

and Baghdad. In 1941 Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns built four Pacific locomotives for ISR to haul the new through service on the Iraqi section of its route. RSH streamlined the PC class to resemble British passenger express Pacifics, with a nose rounded like the LMS Coronation Class and valancing styled like the

LNER Class A4 The Class A4 is a class of streamlined 4-6-2 steam locomotive designed by Nigel Gresley for the London and North Eastern Railway in 1935. Their streamlined design gave them high-speed capability as well as making them instantly recognisable, ...

. However, whereas the

LMS LMS may refer to: Science and technology * Labeled magnitude scale, a scaling technique * Learning management system, education software * Least mean squares filter, producing least mean square error * Leiomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer * Lenz ...

and

LNER LNER may refer to: *London and North Eastern Railway, a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1923 until 1947 *London North Eastern Railway, a train operating company in the United Kingdom since 2018 * Liquid neutral earthing resistor, a type ...

classes had or driving wheels, the PC class had driving wheels: a size akin to those on mixed traffic locomotives in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

. The tender was mounted on bogie trucks for smooth riding: a refinement that the tenders of LMS and LNER streamliners lacked. The PC class tender was equipped with a tender cab in case the locomotive needed to run tender-first. The PC class were named after Iraq's four principal cities:

Mosul Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second large ...

Basra Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is hand ...

and

Kirkuk Kirkuk ( ar, كركوك, ku, کەرکووک, translit=Kerkûk, , tr, Kerkük) is a city in Iraq, serving as the capital of the Kirkuk Governorate, located north of Baghdad. The city is home to a diverse population of Turkmens, Arabs, Kurds, ...

. 502 ''El Mosul'' was the first to be delivered, in March 1941. Thereafter the April

1941 Iraqi coup d'état The 1941 Iraqi coup d'état ( ar, ثورة رشيد عالي الكيلاني, ''Thawrah Rašīd ʿAlī al-Kaylānī''), also called the Rashid Ali Al-Gaylani coup or the Golden Square coup, was a nationalist coup d'état in Iraq on 1 April 1941 t ...

installed a government allied to

Fascist Italy Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the ...

and

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

and delivery of the remaining members of the class was delayed until after the British

invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Ba'athist Iraq, Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one mont ...

in May 1941 and invasion of Vichy-ruled Syria and Lebanon in June and July. 501 ''Bagdad'' was delivered in October 1941 and 503 ''El Basra'' in December. 504 ''Kirkuk'' was lost ''en route'' and did not enter service. Early in 1948 Iraqi State Railways renumbered its locomotive fleet and 501–503 became 1501–1503. From 1961 onwards

diesel locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving whee ...

s were introduced on standard gauge lines in Iraq and steam locomotives including the PC class were withdrawn. In March 1967 locomotives 1501, 1502 and 1503 were disused, stored at Shalchiyah railway works and awaiting disposal. 1501 ''Bagdad'' ''— Click on images br670324, br670328 and br670332 for details.'' and 1502 ''El Mosul'' were intact and 1503 ''El Basrah'' was partly dismantled.

Locomotive data

References

Bibliography

*{{cite book, last=Hughes , first=Hugh , isbn=0-9503469-7-7, year=1981 , title=Middle East Railways , publisher=Continental Railway Circle , pages=90, 97, 98 4-6-2 locomotives Steam locomotives of Iraq Streamlined steam locomotives Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1941 1940 in rail transport 1941 in rail transport Passenger locomotives Scrapped locomotives