FS Class 170 was a class of

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 ...

s acquired by

Italian State Railways Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane S.p.A. ( "Italian Railways of the State"; previously only Ferrovie dello Stato, hence the abbreviation FS) is Italy's national state-owned railway holding company that manages transport, infrastructure, real estate ...

(FS) from

Rete Mediterranea Rete Mediterranea (RM) defines that part of the Italian railway network that, under the law of 27 April 1885 no. 3048, was assigned to the Società per le Strade Ferrate del Mediterraneo for operation and development. These were mainly lines fro ...

(RM) on nationalization in 1905.

History

These locomotives were received by the Mediterranean Network in 1885 following the division of earlier railways between three major networks. They were locomotives for fast passenger trains and most came from the

Società per le strade ferrate dell'Alta Italia The Società per le strade ferrate dell'Alta Italia (''Upper Italian Railways'', ''SFAI'') was an Italian railway company from 1865 to 1885. History It was established on 1 July 1865 with of line it acquired from the state railway of the Kingd ...

(SFAI). They were all of foreign construction. The oldest were delivered from Koechlin of

Mulhouse Mulhouse (; Alsatian language, Alsatian: or , ; ; meaning ''Mill (grinding), mill house'') is a city of the Haut-Rhin Departments of France, department, in the Grand Est Regions of France, region, eastern France, close to the France–Switzerl ...

between 1873 and 1874 and accounted for more than half of the total quantity. The subsequent orders, made by RM, were to Maffei of

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

who delivered them between 1884 and 1889. Eight locomotives were built by the Société Franco-Belge between 1888 and 1889. They were finally acquired by FS in 1905 on nationalization. In the FS locomotive list, at 31 December 1914, 60 units were registered. They were divided into two groups with different technical characteristics and some functional and aesthetic variations.

Technical details

The locomotive was built with a wheel arrangement, with very large diameter wheels and a front axle with side-play allowed. It was typical of the passenger locomotives of the time. It used saturated steam and had two outside cylinders with simple expansion. The boiler pressure was . A three-axle tender of total mass ( in the second group) was coupled to the locomotives. The water capacity was and the coal capacity was ( in the second group). All locomotives were equipped with automatic compressed air brake equipment. Some machines were also equipped with a

steam brake A steam brake is a type of brake for steam locomotives and their tenders, whereby a steam cylinder works directly on the brake linkages. Steam brakes were primarily used on railways where vacuum brakes were used to brake the train, but where th ...

while only no. 1715 had a proportional compressed air brake. All the machines were able to provide steam heating for passenger carriages.

Names

* Locomotive 170.047, ex

1547, ''Caterina Cornaro'' * Locomotive 170.066, ex Rete Mediterranea 1566, ''Ildegonda''

History

Technical details

Names

References

Further reading