Loco 3642

What     : 1925 NSWGR Steam Locomotive 3642

When    : 7-40am Saturday 22nd May 2010

Weapon : FujiFilm FinePix S3 Pro
Window : AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II

I was saying farewell to my daughter at Central this morning; she was catching the 7-40 am Melbourne train to Wagga Wagga.  While waiting for her train to leave, in came Locomotive 3642 pulling a heritage train.  The 3642 is one of three survivors of the class of 75 locomotives introduced as express passenger engines in 1925.

The 36 Class was the first NSW mainline design to use 'modern' Walschaerts valve gear
and turret tenders and was the mainstay of passenger expresses.  The engine was a development of the British-inspired narrow-firebox, 4-6-0 type with the large (5' 9") driving wheels.

Other features include the outside Walschaerts valve gear, an improved ash pan design, a self-cleaning smokebox and a much larger tender, of the 'turret' type. Ten of the class (Nos. 3601 to 3610) were built by the NSW Railway Workshops at Eveleigh, the
remaining 65, including 3642, by Clyde Engineering. In the early to mid-1950s,
the majority of the 36 Class locomotives were rebuilt with new, all-steel
Belpaire boilers and re-designed cabs.

Typical of the technology of the day, the riveted steel boilers originally fitted to the class had copper inner fireboxes, fire-tubes and superheater flues. The replacement Belpaire boilers fitted in the 1950s had steel fireboxes, tubes and flues, in line with US practice and later New South Wales Grand Railway's policy.