The Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (FS; Italian State Railways) Class 310 (Italian: ''Gruppo 310''), formerly Rete Mediterranea Class 380, was a

0-6-0 is the Whyte notation designation for steam locomotives with a wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles, and no trailing wheels. Historically, this was the most common wheel arrangement used o ...

steam locomotive; they were the first Italian as-built

compound locomotives A compound locomotive is a steam locomotive which is powered by a compound engine, a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages. The locomotive was only one application of compounding. Two and three stages were used in sh ...

Design and construction

After modifying six of the pre-existing Class 255 to a compound arrangement as an experiment, with positive results, the ''Ufficio d'Arte di Torino'' of the Rete Mediterranea designed a two-cylinder compound locomotive meant for mixed service; this design also saw the beginning of the adoption of the

Walschaerts valve gear The Walschaerts valve gear is a type of valve gear used to regulate the flow of steam to the pistons in steam locomotives, invented by Belgium, Belgian railway mechanical engineering, engineer Egide Walschaerts in 1844. The gear is sometimes name ...

on Italian locomotives. The round-topped boiler on the first 49 units had standard tubes; however, on the last 20 units it was replaced by one with Serve tubes, which brought the power of these locomotives from the original to . These locomotives were built between 1894 and 1901 by

Ernesto Breda Ernesto, form of the name Ernest in several Romance languages, may refer to: * Ernesto (novel), ''Ernesto'' (novel) (1953), an unfinished autobiographical novel by Umberto Saba, published posthumously in 1975 ** Ernesto (film), ''Ernesto'' (film), ...

and

MÁVAG MÁVAG (''Magyar Királyi Állami Vas-, Acél- és Gépgyárak''; ''Hungarian Royal State Iron, Steel and Machine Factories'') was the largest Hungarian rail vehicle producer. MÁVAG company was the second largest industrial enterprise after the ...

Service

The Class 310, while an important step in Italian locomotive design, was not a thoroughly successful design; the unique cut-off command for both cylinders made it difficult to equalize the work being done, the starting valve design did not prove entirely successful, and the proportions of the cylinders were also less than optimal. The need to obviate these inconvenients led to the development of the more successful Class 320. The Class 310 locomotives served on both passenger and freight trains on secondary lines for their whole career; the last units survived till the early 1930s around

Asti Asti ( , ; ; ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) of 74,348 inhabitants (1–1–2021) located in the Italy, Italian region of Piedmont, about east of Turin, in the plain of the Tanaro, Tanaro River. It is the capital of the province of Asti and ...

, but were withdrawn soon after. No locomotive survived into preservation.

References

* * {{FS locos 310 0-6-0 locomotives C n2v locomotives Compound locomotives Breda locomotives Standard-gauge locomotives of Italy Railway locomotives introduced in 1894