FS Class 410 were

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, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...

s which the

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

(FS) acquired from Rete Sicula (the Sicilian Network) on

nationalization Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with p ...

in 1906.

History

The class was designed by the Sicula Network Research Office led by engineer

Guglielmo Cappa Guglielmo Cappa (21 July 1844 – 1 September 1905) was an Italian engineer who became Head of the Material and Traction Service of the newly formed Italian State Railways (FS) in 1905. Overview Guglielmo Cappa was born in Garlasco, in the Provin ...

as part of a renewal and unification programme to replace obsolete rolling stock inherited from the previous management. It was designated as a group F, according to the custom that was then to define with letters the group of locomotives according to their function, and numbered from 301 to 325. When they passed to FS, they were registered as Class 420. They had some technical differences from other FS 0-8-0 locomotives, notably the use of

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 ...

instead of Stephenson. They were built in three batches and there were some detail differences between batches. The first unit was ordered from

Breda Breda ( , , , ) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the southern part of the Netherlands, located in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Brabant. ...

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

and delivered in 1892 and a further 21 units came from Ansaldo's

Sampierdarena Sampierdarena (also San Pier d'Arena; Ligurian: San Pè d'ænn-a) is a major port and industrial area of Genoa, in northwest Italy. With San Teodoro it forms the West Central (Centro Ovest) ''municipio''. Geography Sampierdarena lies on ...

factory between 1893 and 1894. Finally in 1903 another batch of 3 locomotives was built and delivered by

Officine Meccaniche Officine Meccaniche or OM was an Italian car and truck manufacturing company. It was founded in 1899 in Milan as Società Anonima Officine Meccaniche to manufacture railway rolling stock and car production began in 1918. It disappeared as su ...

of Milan. In 1906 the transfer to FS occurred, and the locomotives received the new four-digit markings 4101-4125 which later became 410.001-025. The locomotives spent their working lives on the island of

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

Features

The Class 410 locomotives, with a power output of , were versatile machines and designed for every type of use, although the small wheels (diameter ) limited the speed to . They were built for

saturated steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is ...

and simple expansion with 2 outside cylinders. Steam distribution was by

slide valve The slide valve is a rectilinear valve used to control the admission of steam into and emission of exhaust from the cylinder of a steam engine. Use In the 19th century, most steam locomotives used slide valves to control the flow of steam into ...

s with

History

Features

References

Further reading