0-6-0T Side-Tank Switcher

0-6-0T Side-Tank Switcher. . , American railroad companies Davenport, Porter and Vulcan built 382 of these narrow-gauge locomotives for foreign service in Japan, Australia, Sudan, West and South Africa, and New Zealand. This particular locomotive, built in 1946, was one of the last produced under Army contract. It was used for stationary hands-on training at the Transportation School until 1959 and today V1923 still rests in its original shipping cradle.

Standard components for the 0-6-0T included bar frames, parallel boiler barrels, rounded top fireboxes, whistle and safety valves mounted on top of the locomotive, steel inner fireboxes, and rocking gates. Water for the steam operation was stored in the large saddle tanks on both sides of the boiler. Coal or oil was stored in a bin directly behind the engineer's cabin which eliminated the need for a following tender. Thus the designation 0-6-0T with the "T" meaning the tender was part of the locomotive.

Once in the foreign service, the 0-6-0T series of locomotives underwent several modifications, such as enlargement of coal carrying capacity, drop sliding doors and wood floor plates for better traction. Thanks to its exceptional weight to power ratio, the 0-6-0T operated primarily as a shunt throughout World War II. Shunting duties included directing vehicles onto minor tracks, rolling stock from one track to another, and marshalling vehicles into a particular order.