The

Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane 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 estat ...

(FS; Italian State Railways) Class 310 (Italian: ''Gruppo 310''), formerly

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 ...

Class 380, was a 0-6-0 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 s ...

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

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 Belgian railway engineer Egide Walschaerts in 1844. The gear is sometimes named without the final "s", since it ...

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) (1953), an unfinished autobiographical novel by Umberto Saba, published posthumously in 1975 ** ''Ernesto'' (film), a 1979 Italian drama loosely ba ...

and

MÁVAG MÁVAG (''Magyar Királyi Államvasutak Gépgyára''; ''Hungarian Royal State Railroads' Machine Factory'') was the largest Hungarian rail vehicle producer. MÁVAG company was the second largest industrial enterprise after the Manfréd Weiss Steel ...

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, but were withdrawn soon after.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

References

* * {{FS locos

310 __NOTOC__ Year 310 ( CCCX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Andronicus and Probus (or, less frequently, year 1063 '' ...

0-6-0 locomotives Compound locomotives Breda locomotives Standard gauge locomotives of Italy Railway locomotives introduced in 1894