Notice about loco:
Fine model for both TRS2004 and 2006, with hight quality mesh and textures, with Twinkles smoke steam and glow firebox efects (modes stack and wistle includes) real hornsound, driver and fireman meshes, front and real light in night mode.
Javier.-
The real one:
In 1951, the
RENFE (
"Red Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Españoles", National Network of the Spanish Railroads) had already decided the electrification of the sections of the network with more difficult slopes and, then, it made an order of ten steam locomotives for great speed passenger trains for the most even sections of the lines of the Castilian
meseta (high plateau). Thus new
RENFE 242 F 2001 to
2010 "Confederation" series was born. The adressee of the order was the company
"La Maquinista Terrestre y Marítima" from Barcelona.
The design of these locomotives derived from the one of the
RENFE 241 2201 a
2257 series: the smoke box was extended and a bissel bogie was put under the firebox, inspired in the American
delta bissel, but provided with two axes. The steam conductions were widened until the limit, the driven wheels diameter was increased until 1,9 m and they left the factory already fuelised. The singularity of these locomotives was showed when painting them of green color, exceptional look in front of the black color that showed all the other steam locomotives of the company.
RENFE 242 F 2001 a
2010 locomotives were among the most powerful ones in Europe and, aside from a similar series of the USSR railroads, they were the only
"Confederation" ones mass-produced and regularly used in the European railroads. The
"La Maquinista Terrestre y Marítima" company commemorated its centenary in 1955 with the release of these engines.
Nevertheless, these locomotives were the
swan song of the steam traction in Spain. Quickly the new electrifications and dieselisations relegated them to freight services for which they were not projected. Only the
2009 (with the
2002's tender) survived scrapping. Magnificently recovered, conserved now in the
Delicias (Madrid) headquarters of the Spanish
Museo del Ferrocarril, it serves in historical and tourist trains.
Text by Carles Romero.
