Added weight plates?

Apologies- These aren’t the best quality photos but they’re all I have.

Ferrocarril El Salvador #9, Baldwin 4-6-0 from the mid 1890’s. Built for the Santa Ana Rwy predecessor road, this was a member of the lightest of the three groups of outside frame ten wheelers that the Salvador Rwy ran, #s 9-11, weighing in around 77,000 lbs if memory serves me.

Look closely at the boiler top- There are two metal plates, wings or tanks riding outboard of the domes and top fittings, and they are fixtures as confirmed by the FES logo and engine number painted on the contraption.

I have never before seen anything like this on a factory Baldwin. Am I right to think that these are weight plates, installed by the FES to increase tractive effort and get longer trains out of their three smallest ten wheelers, or are these a Baldwin installed feature that accomplishes some other function that I’ve never heard tell of?

I’ve looked at the Gerald Best photos in Central American Holliday and the R&LHS Bulletin of the El Salvador locos he saw and it looks like the three of these were either already gone or he somehow missed them- These are the only photos of the class on site in El Salvador I’ve seen.





Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2023 09:08PM by Wayne Sanderson.