I am trying to identify this locomotive.
The photos are from a US government movie taken in Saigon yard, July 1967. While it looks a bit like a D9E (U8B), it isn't. The door at the end of the cab is in the middle, rather than offset like the D9E. It has been suggested that it is some form of ALCO but the bogies are wrong. They look vaguely like those used on a D12E rather than any US style I've seen.
It is numbered BB903. BB refers to the B-B wheel arrangement. D9E's had two stripes rather than the one thick one this locomotive has. Could it be French? Or perhaps built by some small US industrial locomotive builder?
A member of the Vietnam Railway Forum has produced some former southern stamps which may be showing this locomotive but as far as I can tell there is no identification.
On another note, I have been able to identify another mystery locomotive, seen rusting away in the photo below:
It is a Whitcomb 45DE29a, a US industrial locomotive used by the US army and navy so presumably taken to southern Vietnam during the American War. There are no markings so I don't know anything more about it but here's another restored one I prepared earlier:
Don't know what colour the one in VN was but it could have been light grey?
Any more information about this one would be useful as well. At least that's one mystery partly solved.
Until next time.....
No comments:
Post a Comment