The Old Iron Horse Of Indian Railways "WP - 7161"
WP-7161 is the Chittranjan Locomotive Works built engine, inducted into active service in 1965, this locomotive was also there was none of the ‘tail wag’ experience with these engines that was so characteristic of the XC class.
On establishing their success further orders for WP locomotives went to Baldwin Canadian Locomotive Company (CLC) and Montreal Locomotive Works (MLW) who shared the manufacturing the next 300 WP engines. These engines were numbered from 7216 to 7515 in order of the Railway to which they...
more... were allotted. A further 120 engines were ordered from Canadian Locomotive Company in 1955-56 and 60 more engines came from Poland and Austria between 1957-59, this loco was in production for 20 years from 1947 to 1967 from 53 locos in 1953, it reached a peak holding of 167 locos on Northern Railways in 1967.
This Pacific class of broad gauge loco marked the change the coding from ‘X’ to ‘W’ for broad gauge locomotives. It was capable of doing up to 110 Km/h and remained Indian Railways crack locomotives for many years....
By Nitin Bhardwaj
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