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This type of locomotive is named after its inventor, the Swiss Anatole Mallet (Oct. 23, 1837 – Oct. 10, 1919), who was granted a patent for the four cylinder compound double locomotive in 1884. Mallets are articulated locomotives: the front driving gear is mounted in a truck, the rear driving gear is mounted on the main frame. The independently driven gears are arranged according to the compound principle: The rear gear is driven by the high-pressure cylinders, the front gear by the low-pressure cylinders. The boiler is fixed on the main frame; it is supported by slide chairs on the front truck. A well-known German Mallet was the Bavarian Gt 2x4/4 (later class 96). Mallets were very popular in the United States; the enormous boiler of, e.g., a “Big Boy” (class 4000) could not have been mounted on a rigid frame.
For the sake of completeness, another type of articulated locomotive should be mentioned here which can even still be found at the RhB today: The still operational Xrot d is a locomotive of the Meyer type (Jean Jacques Meyer, 1804–1877). Meyer-locomotives have two trucks; to keep the steam pipes short, the cylinder groups are mounted contrarotating in the middle of the locomotive (1).
None of the twelve Mallet locomotives that were acquired by the LD (Landquart-Davos-Bahn) and later RhB (2) between 1891 and 1903 has been preserved.
Pictures are rare, colour pictures do not exist, and often, one has to rely on (hand-coloured) postcards when trying to document these locomotives' history.
Usually, I try to use my own pictures or pictures that have been made available to me personally on this site – on this page, I partly have to use material that was published elsewhere; with the best will in the world, it is impossible to get current pictures of a Mallet! I strongly recommend Jeanmaire's book to the interested reader; it is a treasure-trove of data, technical drawings and old pictures, and even Jeanmaire uses old postcards sometimes.
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This picture is a highly magnified scan from a 14 x 9 cm postcard on which the locomotive has a length of 11 millimeters – a typical contemporary source of RhB-Mallet material. (The card is shown on the page “RhB postcards – Albula line.”)
Tevertheless, even this tiny image allows to classify the locomotive: It is a class G 2/3+2/2 Mallet which means that the road number must be in the range between 25 and 32; the picture shows the locomotive with short water tanks, i.e., in the 1902 to 1907 period.
The 12 RhB-Mallets existed in three types with different wheel arrangements. These were
| rear |  |
front | 2 locomotives (3) class | G 2/2+2/2 | (2 driving gears with two powered axles each), |
| rear |  |
front | 2 locomotives class | G 2/2+2/3 | (2 driving gears with two powered axles each, 1 rear carrying axle), and |
| rear |  |
front | 8 locomotives class | G 2/3+2/2 | (1 front carrying axle, 2 driving gears with two powered axles each). |
The class G 2/2+2/2 locomotives had been ordered by the LD from Maffei, Munich; they had the LD road numbers 6 and 7 (factory numbers 1613/1614). All other locomotives were made on the RhB's orders by SLM in Winterthur (factory numbers 23/24: 958/959; 25–32: 1480–1487).
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G 2/2+2/2 | B'B | Length over buffers: 10'250 mm; empty weight 32,4 t; horse power 430 PS, tractive effort 5'750 kg, top speed 45 km/h; driving wheel diameter 1'050 mm; cylinder bore 330 mm (superheated), 490 mm (saturated); stroke 550 mm | |
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| Road number | Name | Put into service |
Out of RhB service | Whereabouts |
| 6 (LD), 21 (RhB) | Scaletta | June 23, 1891 | 1920 | sold to Brazil* |
| 7 (LD), 22 (RhB) | Albula | July 1, 1891 | ||
Both engines were converted to G 2/3+2/2 by the installation of an Adams front carrying axle resulting in the wheel arrangement (1'B) B (# 22: 1910, # 21: 1911). |
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Thanks to Eduardo Coelho, a fellow railway enthusiast from Brazil, we know some details about the history of these two engines that are not found in the literature: |
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G 2/2+2/3 | B'B1' | Length over buffers: 10'343 mm; empty weight 36,5 t; horse power 500 PS, tractive effort 6'600 kg, top speed 45 km/h; driving wheel diameter 1'050 mm; cylinder bore 315 mm (superheated), 490 mm (saturated); stroke 550 mm | |
| Road number | Name | Put into service |
Out of RhB service | Whereabouts |
| 23 | Maloja | May 30, 1896 | 1926 | sold to Oberhasli power station, Meiringen (road number was kept), scraped 1940 |
| 24 | Chiavenna | June 12, 1896 | ||
The names of these two locomotives indicated the planned extensions of the RhB network (see also “The RhB Engadin line”). |
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G 2/3+2/2 | (1'B) B | Length over buffers: 10'626 mm; empty weight 39,7 t; horse power 500 PS, tractive effort 6'600 kg, top speed 45 km/h; driving wheel diameter 1'050 mm; cylinder bore 315 mm (superheated), 490 mm (saturated); stroke 550 mm | |
| Road number | Put into service |
Out of RhB service | Whereabouts | |
| 25 | November 25, 1902 | 1921 | sold to Madagascar, 950 mm gauge*, road number there initially 51, later 40-820 (?), scraped around 1951 | |
| 26 | December 3, 1902 | 1921 | sold to Yverdon-Ste.Croix Railways, there # 26, after electrification sold to Spain in 1947 (first Union Española de Explosivos, Minas de Cala, Sevilla, in 1952 Estado Manresa-Guardiola, there # 601, scraped after 1961) | |
| 27 | December 10, 1902 | 1921 | sold to Yverdon-Ste.Croix Railways, there # 27, scraped after electrification in 1946 | |
| 28 | December 20, 1902 | 1920 | sold to Yverdon-Ste.Croix Railways, there # 28, after electrification sold to Spain in 1947 (first Union Española de Explosivos, Minas de Cala, Sevilla, in 1952 Estado Manresa-Guardiola, there # 602, in 1958 Estado Peñarroya-Puertollano, scraped after 1969) | |
| 29 | December 29, 1902 | 1921 | sold to Madagascar, 950 mm gauge*, road number there initially 52, later 40-821 (?), scraped around 1951 | |
| 30 | January 5, 1903 | 1921 | sold to Madagascar, 950 mm gauge*, road number there initially 53, later 40-822 (?), scraped around 1951 | |
| 31 | January 15, 1903 | 1921 | sold to Madagascar, 950 mm gauge*, road number there initially 54, later 40-823 (?), scraped around 1951 | |
| 32 | January 24, 1903 | 1921 | sold to Madagascar, 950 mm gauge*, road number there initially 55, later 40-824 (?), scraped around 1951 | |
| *: This information was taken from the literature; however, I only find information about a 1000-mm-network in Madagascar. | ||||
The locomotives of this series had no proper names. The large water tanks were installed in 1906/07. |
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“To date, no large-series manufacturer has made models of the RhB Mallets – there are so few model railroaders with a layout in era I or II A that such a model would never reach the production figures that are necessary for large series.
Models of the Mallets are only available from Ferro-Suisse – or better, were available: This locomotive has been out of production for years, and, according to the company philosophy, will not be produced again. Model railroaders and collectors interested in a Ferro-Suisse Mallet have to try their luck in the classified ads sections of model railroading journals, at meetings or at specialized dealers.”
I wrote the above text in August 1998; only half a year later, I had to edit this text for the first time: At the 1999 Nürnberg International Toy Fair, Bemo announced a limited run of the Mallet No. 22, made of metal, in the version without the Adams axle, i.e., from the time between 1895 and 1910. Orders had to be placed until May 1, 1999. This model (Bemo No. 1293 112) was sold out fast; today, you have to look for it in the second-hand-market.
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| Bemo Mallet No. 22 |
Four years later, Bemo made a model of the series G 2/2+2/3 Mallets, No. 24, with large snow plough as Exclusiv-Modell 2003 (Bemo No. 1293 124).
Suitable era I cars are available from Bemo or from Modellbauatelier Pirovino.
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| Ferro-Suisse Mallet No. 25 | |
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The first model ever made by Ferro-Suisse in 1979 was the Mallet G 2/3+2/2 # 25 with short water tanks in the version until 1906/07 shown above. The drawing at the top of this page – modified from Jeanmaire – shows the version with large water tanks that reached up to the smoke-box. The unpainted brass model (left, from Schmalspur-Digest 1, Copyright © 1984 Ferro-Suisse) clearly shows the perfect detail of driving gear and superstructures. |
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| Mallet Nr. 23 von Ferro-Suisse | |
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The class G 2/2+2/3-Mallets were represented in the Ferro-Suisse program by No. 23 “Maloja.” Besides the normal version (picture above), there is a model of a locomotive that did not really exist like this, nevertheless, there are even photos that show this engine. |
An SLM factory photograph which shows the locomotive in this trim is found in Stolz/Hänecke's book. In my postcard collection, I have a card from this era which shows No. 23 with the white trim lines:
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The RhB directorate was obviously not very enthusiastic about this version. We do not know what exactly they disliked: Did these lines look too dainty, or was the rejection based on more practical considerations? Considering how dirty a steam locomotive gets during normal operation, it would have been neceessary to clean the machines very often if you wanted to keep the trims visible.
Whatever the reason – with this model, Ferro-Suisse has created a beautiful monument to this locomotive that was never allowed to run on the tracks of the RhB.
References:
Copyright © 1998–2008 and responsible for contents: Christoph Ozdoba.
First version August 22, 1998, last edited February 17, 2008.
