According to Donald Binns Book'Kitson Meyer Articulated Locomotives' 6 of these engines were built for the Anotfagasta and Bolivia Railway Company in 1913. All six locomotives were still in use in 1959 - then operated by the Bolivian Railways - but by 1976 they were dumped at Uyuni where the photograph was taken.
The locomotives were built to the 2-6-0 + 2-6-0 wheel arrangment and because of the high elevations at which they were to be used the cabs were fully enclosed - a progressive move for a British built engine in 1913. They were built new to the metre gauge, the engines weighed in at 106 short tons in w.o. & the tenders loaded weighed nearly 57 short tons, the engine length was 50'6" & the overall length 79'7". With a tractive effort of ca. 34,600lb they were, for their time, both large and powerful narrow gauge engines. The strange thing about these engines is that they were designed to run cab first AND were coal fired - the tender carrying 4 tons of sacked coal and 5,200 Imp Gallons of water. This meant that they required a crew of at least four: driver, fireman and two coal carriers to move coal forward from tender to cab. Looking at the builders photographs which show a total absence of footplate handrailing I find it hard to believe that there was any intention of carrying coal forward whilst the engines were moving and I presume that the design intent was to move coal forward at station stops - but they were a rugged lot back in 1913! This manly configuration was eventually abandoned;the operators adopted the wimpish approach of the S.P. and made the engines oil burners and by all accounts they then gave excellents service - a statement suported by their 40 + years of service on one of the hardest railways in the world. And now their remains have been transformed into an expressionist sculpture - an imaginary vison of what they were.
