Steam railcar of the Egyptian Khedives
The steam railcars of the Egyptian Khedives are steam locomotives with an attached or permanently coupled travel compartment. In English-language publications, this type of locomotive is also referred to as "Egyptian Kiosks" .
history
Vehicles of this type were procured several times for the Khedives of Egypt :
- In 1858/1859 the first such vehicle came to Egypt with a large number of locomotives from the Robert Stephenson factory (factory no. 1181). It is described as a tank locomotive with a wheel arrangement of 1A'2, on which a two-axle bogie was permanently mounted, which carried the compartment of the Khedive. With a capacity of only 1.8 cubic meters of water and 4.5 tons of coal, the construction was relatively weak. At the end of the 19th century, nothing was known about the whereabouts of the vehicle.
- Another similar vehicle from the same manufacturer (serial no. 1295) and of a similar design followed in 1862. Here the travel cabin and the main part of the vehicle had a common frame (1A2). It was lavishly decorated on the outside. The interior of the vehicle was luxuriously upholstered in silk. The decorations were black, white, and gold, designed by Matthew Digby Wyatt , a specialist in Arabic design. Many individual parts of the vehicle were gold-plated. There was a connecting door between the travel compartment and the driver's cab of the locomotive, so that the khedive could go there and drive the locomotive himself.
- The vehicle initially had road number 63, was later run with road number 300 and at the beginning of the 20th century had road number 30. The Khedive Tawfiq (he ruled from 1879 to 1892) probably never used the vehicle. During his reign it was parked in a vehicle hall. His successor, Abbas II (he ruled from 1892 to 1914), on the other hand, used the locomotive between his palace in Alexandria and the summer palace in Montaza . During this time the vehicle was stationed in Alexandria. The vehicle is preserved in the Egyptian Railway Museum in Cairo.
- No photos are known of the third such vehicle (Robert Stevenson Locomotive Works, serial number 1645 from 1865).
See also
literature
- Paul Cotterell: ESR Disinfector Locos in Palestine . In: HaRakevet 49 (June 2000), p. 19.
- Walter Rothschild (Ed.): Egyptian “Kiosk” Locos . In: HaRakevet 52 (April 2001), p. 8.
- NN: ESR Kiosk Locos and Disinfector Sets . In: HaRakevet 123 (December 2018), p. 27f.
Web links
- Robert Stephenson's Egyptian Specials - A note on the Egyptian “specials” of Robert Stephenson by Robert Forsythe
- Historical Railway Images: Egypt Railways - The Egyptian Viceroy's private 2-2-4T steam locomotive (Robert Stephenson Locomotive Works 1295/1862)