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The oil-burning N/1 Class 2-10-0 was a powerful locomotive which was used to haul goods trains up the 1 in 37 gradient  between Bombay and Igatpuri.  Twenty of them were built during 1920-21 by the North British Locomotive Company.  They were supplied to the Great Indian Peninsula Railway (GIPR) which, after independence, became part of the present Central Railway.  When the route they worked on was electrified in 1927, the N/1 Class engines became redundant.  They were then sold to the North Western Railway (NWR), now in Pakistan.  There they obviated the need to buy a large Garratt Class for use on the steep line through the Bolan Pass.  The N/1 served the NWR well until the late 1950s when they were replaced by diesels.

One of the N/1 Class locos was actually coal-fired.  Its firemen had trouble shovelling coal into the 7 feet deep firebox.  The oil-fired N/1 engines did not have this problem.  Oil-firing was preferred in Pakistan for a different reason.  After Partition, Pakistan would not or could not buy coal from its regular Indian suppliers.

The N/1 was the first ten-coupled tender engine built by a British manufacturer and was the only such locomotive to ever serve in India.  It was also the only 4 cylinder non-articulated goods locomotive ever built.  With the inherent perfect balance made possible by 4 cylinders and other refinements like the tailrod in the cylinder (visible in the photographs), it must have been the smoothest-running goods engine ever built.  The N/1 probably had 4 cylinders because one drive axle could not have accepted the enormous forces that 2 cylinders would have generated.  Unfortunately, the two inside cylinders and the crank axle would have been less "get-at-able" then their two outside counterparts, so maintenance would have been more difficult.

The N/1's 160 psig boiler pressure was rather low by 1920 standards.  It could have been made so low to reduce the ratio of tractive effort to adhesive weight, thus minimize the possibility of slipping while hauling a heavy load.  The boiler was a huge one with enormous steaming capacity.

Strangely, Jane's World Railways (1951 edition) lists only 3 cylinders for this engine and a 180 psig boiler pressure.  These are undoubtedly errors.

Cylinders(4): 20" x 26", Boiler Pressure: 160 psig, Driving Wheel Dia.: 4'-8 1/2", Tractive Effort: 49,700 lb, Axle Load: 19 tonnes, Adhesion Weight 95 tonnes, Engine Weight w/o tender: 108 tonnes, Engine Weight w/ tender: 174.5 tonnes, Water Capacity: 5000 gal (imp), Coal Capacity: 12 tonnes (or 9 tonnes of oil), Coupled Wheelbase: 22'-0 3/4", Total Engine and Tender Length: 70'-5", Maximum Train Load: 2120 tonnes on level track.

Boiler Heating Surface: 2968 sq.ft, Superheating surface: 617 sq.ft, Grate Area: 44 sq.ft., Boiler diameter: 6'-6 3/4"

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