Visvesvaraya Iron & Steel Works, India

The recent discussions concerning large locomotives for the WHR and L&BR brought to mind the network of 2' gauge idustrial lines at India's Visvesvaraya Iron & Steel Works (formerly the Mysore Iron & Steel Works), which was described in the Railway World Yearbook 1990. This had a fleet of four Kerr, Stuart 2-8-2s (works nos. 4240-3 of 1922) and five Bagnall 2-8-2s (works nos. 2903-6 delivered in 1950, and 3126 delivered in 1957), plus a Baldwin 2-8-2 (64349 of 1942, noted derelict in 1973) and another "Bagnall" constructed at the works from spare parts (running number 16, 1975). These were described as being similar to the Gwalior locos. Orginally there were also five Baldwin 2-6-4Ts, but by 1978 only one (works no. 52720/1919) survived, preserved on a plinth.

By 1987 the railways had closed, but I have not been able to find any information online about the fate of the locos. Surely, there must be somebody here who knows?

 

Just google mapped the name and there are several, which town is it in please?

 

I made contact with the company back in the early nineties - by surface mail. it took a few weeks, but the reply was most courteous, but, unfortunately negative. I was offered a "Tramway" gauge locomotive, which was the last surviving metre gauge O & K shunter for the main line sidings. All of the 2" gauge locos had been scrapped by the end of the eighties; bearing in mind we are discussing a steelworks here, they would recycle anything worthwhile pretty quickly. A very sad end indeed for the relatively modern and impressive Bagnalls.

As for their suitability for the Welsh highland, they did not possess any wheelbase compensation - such as the NG15s have - so would probably be unusable on a railway with tight radius curves.

cheers

Alan

 

Thanks for that Alan. Sad to get a negative response, but at least we know.

Ian, for the record the steel works was in the town of Bhadravati in the state of Karnataka (formerly Mysore). This was the hub of a network of passenger-carrying and industrial 2' gauge lines. Visvesvaraya was the name of the founding engineer of the works, not any geographical location.

 

I visited the line in 1979/80 with the IRS. We were not allowed to take photos within the works itself, which was very sad given the 'gems' working on the day [an OK 0-8-0T, AB 0-6-0T x2,ex IR F class 0-6-0 on the metre gauge and 5 of the 2-8-2s on the 2' gauge -Bagnals, Kerr Stuarts and the home made one built from spare parts in 1975!]

We had a special train on the ng line to the quarries hauled by #9, KS4243 of 1922. You can see 4 photos of this here -

Zenfolio | Mick Pope - Railway Related | Industrial Steam Locomotives of India | Kerr Stuart 1922 built 2' gauge 2-8-2 at Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel at Bhadravati,1979

 

Some photos there with a real drool factor! How many of them are still in existence?

 

Many thanks for sharing Mick, an absolutely splendid collection of photos!! Just wish that I'd had the opportunity to have seen some of those gems myself.

As regards the Dehri - Rhotas locomotives, they survived into the late nineties, I remember a report in Continental Railway Journal showing the works stuffed with complete but derelict locos sometime after the railway closed, who knows, they may still be there. I'm sure that there are some survivors lurking in India, but it sure is a very difficult place to extricate locos from.

Thanks again Mick.

Cheers

Alan

 

Hi Alan

I was discussing the Dehri-Rhotas situation a few months back with someone who has been out there in the past year or so, and he told me that they where still there and still subject to the legal situation regards the pension fund.

As I understand it the Dehri-Rhotas company went bust and did not leave enough money in the pension pot, because the state then had to pay out the pension themselves, they took legal advice to claim ownership of anything they could sell to fund the pension, that bit is simple where it get complicated is that the unions also got involved and the India Tax office was also owed money. But as the company had gone bust all the asset have been locked up as assets of the courts for years while the various parties fight about who own what. So until that one gets resolved, the tree will continue to grow up in the workshop and around the locos as they can not legal be moved without an Indian court order, and then you have to get the agreement of all the parties involved in the court cases to release the locos and stock, but even now they wont be cheap.

Without saying to much there may be a solution on the horizon, which if it happen all well and good, but don't hold your breath as I have been trying various means for quite some time now.

regards

Colin

 

Thanks for sharing those Mick - these are the only photos I have ever seen of the line, apart from those in the aforementioned Railway World annual.

 

This is a photo that I have scanned form somewhere ... can't remember where. It's marked Bahadravati Steel Works 23/11/1979. Looks like the same loco as in Mike Pope's pictures.

Does anyone know the history of this loco? Was it supplied new to the steelworks? Or is it a secondhand loco from one of the narrow gauge lines?

 

Nos. 1,2, 8 and 9 from Kerr Stuart 1922.
Nos. 11-14 from Bagnall in 1950 and No 15 in 1957. One more of the same, No 16 built at companys own workshop around 1975.
All new and I don't know how to tell the difference.
They all look very similar to the Kerr Stuarts NH2-NH3 on Gwalior also built in 1922 and onwards. Maybe also NH1, KS of 1914 is of this type, have not seen pictures of those.

 

The answer you seek will be in the NG volume of Hugh Hughes' monumental series on Indian Locomotives (the second series).
I don't have a copy at the moment, but from memory I think the Mysore Iron & Steel had some big 2-8-2s built for them in the 1950s by Bagnall. This looks like one of those. Again from memory there may have been some earlier similar locos from Kerr Stuart (1920s?) or I may be getting confused. Certainly KS built some similar E and ES class 4-6-2 for the Mysore State Railway 2'6'' system.

 

Just realised all the answers were up-thread... Read before replying, Andrew.

 

You are excused Andrew, I took me a few iterations before I got the figures right.

Just a few days ago I stumbled over this page about the sisters at Gwalior (these I saw in 1980);
http://www.009.cd2.com/members/how_to/gwalior.htm
From there, with some guesswork I found this just beautiful drawing of the NH2, Kerr Stuarts of 1922;
http://www.009.cd2.com/members/how_to/indian_mikado/goods.gif
which I guess is similar/same as the Visvesvarays locos.

I would really like to find more technical info on the Indian 2 footers (more than just from Darjeeling).

 

Thanks for all replies. So it appears that these are genuine industrial locos, but probably identical in most respects to one of the Gwalior NHx classes.

 

Just to be clear; Gwalior NH1-NH3 were KS locos 1914-1928.
NH4 were Baldwins, looking like mini variants of Denver Rio Grande & Westerns 3 footers.
And NH5 were Japanese 1959 copies of these.

In the mid/late 1980:s the Indian Railway Museum offered the NH5 (and Darejeeling tanks) for sale. The NH2 750 is plithed in Gwalior. Are any of these magnificent engines preserved?