The Palestine Railways P 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 ...
mixed traffic
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 ...
on
Palestine Railways
{{Infobox rail
, railroad_name = Palestine Railway
, logo_filename =
, logo_size =
, system_map =
, map_caption =
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, image = AwmB00283.Samakh.jpg
, image_size ...
and its successor
Israel Railways
Israel Railways Ltd. , dba Israel Railways ( he, רַכֶּבֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל, ''Rakevet Yisra'el''), is the state-owned principal railway company responsible for all inter-city, commuter, and freight rail transport in Israel. Isr ...
. The PMR introduced the class in 1935 and Israel Railways withdrew the last ones in 1960.
Background
Palestine Railways was founded in 1920 to operate all railways in the
League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
Mandate of Palestine. The mainstays of its locomotive fleet were its 50
H class 4-6-0s built by
Baldwin in
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
in 1918, covering most duties on the main line between
Haifa
Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...
in Palestine and
El Kantara East on the
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...
in Egypt via
Lydda
Lod ( he, לוד, or fully vocalized ; ar, اللد, al-Lidd or ), also known as Lydda ( grc, Λύδδα), is a city southeast of Tel Aviv and northwest of Jerusalem in the Central District of Israel. It is situated between the lower Shephe ...
,
Gaza and
El Arish
ʻArish or el-ʻArīsh ( ar, العريش ' , ''Hrinokorura'') is the capital and largest city (with 164,830 inhabitants ) of the North Sinai Governorate of Egypt, as well as the largest city on the entire Sinai Peninsula, lying on the Mediter ...
. Its daily Haifa – El Kantara through service was hardly an express, but it included two
Wagons-Lits
Newrest Wagons-Lits, formerly (lit. ''International Sleeping-Car Company''), also CIWL, Compagnie des Wagons-Lits, or just Wagons-Lits, is a division of particularly known for its on-train catering and sleeping car services, as well as being ...
cars and early in the 1930s PR sought a more powerful locomotive to improve its performance.
Characteristics
In 1935 PR bought six new 4-6-0 tender locomotives from the
North British Locomotive Company
The North British Locomotive Company (NBL, NB Loco or North British) was created in 1903 through the merger of three Glasgow locomotive manufacturing companies; Sharp, Stewart and Company (Atlas Works), Neilson, Reid and Company (Hyde Park Wor ...
in
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
, Scotland and designated them class P. These had a tractive effort of : 16% more power than the of class H.
[ Class P also had driving wheels:][ a mixed-traffic diameter by British standards but larger than those of the H class and therefore more suitable for higher speed traffic.
The locomotives were typically British in design but the tenders were not. Most tender locomotives in Britain had six-wheel tenders but PR opted for more American-style ]bogie
A bogie ( ) (in some senses called a truck in North American English) is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transp ...
tenders, reportedly to carry more water. However, PR's track was not the highest quality so the fact that bogie vehicles ride better and may be less prone to derailment may have been another factor.
In service all members of the class were painted black.[ From 1944 the number of each locomotive was painted in very large numerals on the side of its tender.][
]
World War II and after
PR had fuelled its locomotives with Welsh coal but in June 1940 Italy declared war on the Allies, making the Mediterranean extremely dangerous for British merchant shipping. PR therefore began converting its locomotives to burn oil, but it did not complete the conversion programme until 1943.
Palestine Railways was strategically important to the British Mandate authorities, so paramilitaries frequently attacked it during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine
The 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, later known as The Great Revolt (''al-Thawra al- Kubra'') or The Great Palestinian Revolt (''Thawrat Filastin al-Kubra''), was a popular nationalist uprising by Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine a ...
and especially the 1946–48 1947–1949 Palestine war
The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. It is known in Israel as the War of Independence ( he, מלחמת העצמאות, ''Milkhemet Ha'Atzma'ut'') and ...
. El Kantara – Haifa trains were a particular target and Zionist paramilitaries bombed them three times during the 1947–1949 Palestine war. The P class survived these attacks and PR's Quishon workshops in Haifa managed to repair any damage.
After the UK withdrew from Mandate Palestine in May 1948 all six P class passed into Israel Railways stock. After the War of Independence and subsequent 1948 Arab–Israeli War
The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...
, main line services were truncated to the territory within the new State of Israel. By 1956 diesels had taken over the main line services and steam workings were largely confined to the central part of the country around Lod (formerly Lydda). The P class remained in service until the official end of steam on Israel Railways in 1959. All six were scrapped in about 1960 but the tender of number 62 is preserved at the Israel Railway Museum
Israel Railway Museum ( he, מוזיאון רכבת ישראל) is the national railway museum of Israel, located in Haifa. The railway museum is owned by Israel Railways and is located at the Haifa East Railway Station which nowadays no longer se ...
in Haifa.
References
Sources
*
*
*{{cite book , editor1-last=Proud , editor1-first=Peter , editor2-last=Smith , editor2-first=C , year=1946 , title=The Standard Gauge Locomotives of the Egyptian State Railways and The Palestine Railways 1942–1945 , place=London , publisher=Railway Correspondence & Travel Society
The Railway Correspondence and Travel Society (RCTS) is a national society founded in Cheltenham, England in 1928 to bring together those interested in rail transport and locomotives.
Since 1929 the Society has published a regular journal ''The ...
, page=7
4-6-0 locomotives
1935 establishments in Mandatory Palestine
Railway locomotives introduced in 1935
History of Mandatory Palestine
Steam locomotives of Mandatory Palestine
NBL locomotives
Scrapped locomotives
Standard gauge locomotives of Mandatory Palestine
Standard gauge steam locomotives of Egypt
Standard gauge steam locomotives of Israel