Re: IRCA/FEGUA

Thanks for the information - and for making a Limey more than a little jealous, in the early 70's I was spending my free time riding on 6 coupled saddle tanks shunting Colliery Yards and hauling loose coupled 4 wheel wooden frame wagons - not in the same league!. Thanks also for answering an unasked question: you confirmed that front end throttles were fitted to the class 157's.
Several further questions:
1. Were the Krupp built members of the 157 class identical to the Baldwin built members - some photgraphs that I have seen suggest that the tenders at least were slightly different in outline.
2. On a typical day in the 1970's how many crews would be called at Guatemala City, how many steam engines would be working out of Guatemala City on both the E and W bound lines and how many tains/day would be running on these lines. From pictures I have seen freights would be run with up to 2 helpers set into the train whereas passanger trains seem to have been run without helpers. Just trying to get a feel for how busy the system was at this time.
3. Were the 2-8-2's used on the line to San Salvador or was this line the preserve of the larger 2-8-0's - most of which seem to have been rebuilt with piston valves?.
Any further information about how the IRCA/FEGUA operated in the 70's would be very welcome - the second biggest 3 foot gauge undertaking in the world after the railways of Columbia and much the more coherent system?
Charles