Sorry folks! It's April the 1st!
At a press conference at their Pichon-Longueville headquarters, Ajesta, the French preservation society, announced their bold initiative to build a Chapelon A1 from scratch. Encouraged by the A1 Trust’s success building Tornado the society have decided on their own new build, Chapelon’s incredible 2-12-0 which many regard as the ultimate development of the engineer’s compound designs. Avril Lapitre, spokesperson for Ajesta, said, “We have been greatly encouraged by the British A1 and feel that the time is right for France to show what it can do. The fact that our locomotive will have twice as many cylinders and driven axles as Tornado is a matter of great national pride. We look forward to the day when these two great 21st century machines can be brought together."
The Chapelon A1 features included six cylinders and reheat. It was a rebuild of a class 6000 2-10-0 by the great Andre Chapelon for the Paris-Orleans Railway. Steam from the boiler passed through a 39 element Houlet superheater and then to the two high pressure cylinders inside the frames which drove the fourth coupled axle. Steam leaving these passed through the re-heater, which as essentially a Schmitdt superheater with 68 elements. Two of the low pressure cylinders were also inside the frames and drove the second couple axle, the outside low pressure cylindersdrove the third coupled axle. All the cylinders had steam jackets. The various cranks were aligned to give six beats per revolution, smoothing the driving torque. Lenz rotary valve gear was fitted. The 160 A1 was completed at Tours in 1940 but was not tested until 1948 due to WW2. It was extremely successful and intended for hauling heavy freight trains on the mountainous roads operated by the P.O. in the Massif Central. Other notable features of the design included dynamic balancing, rod of a very unusual pattern to drive the combination lever of the Walschaerts valve gear.
