Thonburi Temple of Steam

I had a weekend in Bangkok en route from Singapore to India and somehow found time for a brief visit to the Royal State Railways loco shed at Thonburi. My notes indicate 47 steam locos were shedded here: 4 class 351 2-8-2; 27 'MacArthur' 2-8-2; 12 C class 2-6-0; 4 class 901 2-8-2. All were metre gauge. One factor which in some respects helped keep steam alive was the 1973 worldwide oil crisis delaying the introduction of further diesels - though also impacting on oil burning steam locos which in Thailand had often been converted to burn wood, as can be seen in some of the pictures.

Japanese built 2-6-0 730 shunts at Thonburi, while a perfectly balanced man walks past.

Wartime designed American built 'MacArthur' 2-8-2s were the most numerous class in Bangkok, two are in this photo. Note the closest one is definitely a wood burner!

Line up of locos on shed at Thonburi. All photos taken on Sunday 3 February 1974. Some of these may be oil burners put in

storage when the oil crisis flared up.

Above: Japanese 2-8-2 937 was built by Hitachi in 1949 and is an oil burner,in steam according to my notes.

Below: Another Japanese 2-8-2 is 964 with capped stack and smoke deflectors, also in steam. It was built by Kisha Seizo Kaishaof Osaka in 1950.

The following article first appeared in the 'Pattaya Mail' in Thailand and was written by Cheltenham-born John Blyth who spent a lifetime career with British Railways before retiring to Thailand.

Down The Iron Road: The Forgotten ‘MacArthurs’

by John D. Blyth

War locomotives are a special breed: they have to be very tough, able to work in bad conditions with little or no maintenance, simple to operate, and able to be built in a hurry in large numbers. The Americans were past masters at all this, and the “MacArthurs’ were as American as any. 741 of them were built between 1942 and 1948, and after the war, six were delivered to Ethiopia, seven to Greece in the same year, and 33 to the newly-formed Indian Government Railways in 1948. In East Africa in 1953 there appeared mysteriously yet another, built almost entirely from spare parts supplied from former ‘Macarthur’ users! So the total appears to be 748 locomotives.

The ‘MacArthurs’ could be supplied for a track gauge of 1000 mm or 1067 mm (3 ft. 6 in.), and although there wasn’t any provision for conversion from one to the other, this was done in a number of cases; some locomotives for the White Pass and Yukon Route in Alaska were even converted to a 3 ft. gauge (915 mm.) To enable them to work almost anywhere, the weight on any one axle was kept down to 8 tons; they could burn coal or oil as fuel, although those which came to Thailand in 1946/7 all – naturally – burned wood. Most of the locomotives were sent at first to India, and it was in that country that the last ones were seen at work. During and after the war there was much movement of these ‘universal’ locomotives between countries, and I have listed elsewhere no less than 19 countries where they have worked, and 29 administrations they have worked for in those countries. I have, in that list, not included the USA itself, as although a few locomotives seem to have been left standing at the West Yermo Depot, there is no evidence available that any of them were ever put into service. Only those supplied to the S.E.K. (Greek national Railway) ever worked in Europe

Occupying military powers seldom take much care of the property of the country they occupy, and although the rail system in Thailand kept going ‘after a fashion’ through the war it is plain that only just sufficient work was done to fulfill the needs of the Japanese ‘guests’, who had brought in a number of their own locomotives and some also from the Malayan and Indonesian systems. The Japanese engineer, Takao Takada, in his book ‘Steam of Thailand’ relates that he came to Thailand on a number of visits to recommend from examination which locomotives ought to be scrapped and which were fit to be repaired once more. A good portion of Makkasan workshops had been bombed to the ground, and three major bridges – the Rama VI bridge between Bangkok and Thonburi, the Tapi River bridge at Surat Thani, and the Bandara Bridge on the Northern line – had also been cut by bombing: of these only the last-named could be replaced by a temporary timber trestle bridge. This did not make the movement of locomotives, etc., any easier.

The allocation of 68 ‘MacArthur’ locomotives to Thailand in 1946/7 must indeed have been a blessing, even though many of them had seen much use elsewhere and were not in good condition. They came in three batches: (i) Twenty locomotives transferred from India to Malay, and surplus to requirements in that country. They passed to Thailand via Padang Besar, but would have to be ferried across the river at Surat Thani, and again from Thonburi to Bangkok. (ii) Twenty further locomotives from India, shipped to Malay and sent to Thailand by rail, the first arriving in January 1947. The final locomotives were 18 obtained new from the USA’s West Yermo depot. They were converted to the meter gauge before leaving the USA. Two were scrapped, one and possibly both having been damaged in accidents; the remaining 66 were all put to work, helping to provide some kind of skeleton service all over the system. As opportunity arose, 26 were sent to Japan for overhaul, 13 each to the K.S.K. works and the others to the Hitachi works. All 66 were still in service in 1965, and many were to work for another two years or so after that.

One writer has criticized the ‘MacArthurs’ but the loving care with which they were still being treated as late as 1971, when I saw two immaculately clean at Chumpon, and some at Thonburi with external decorations, do no suggest lack of appreciation by the regular crews. It has been suggested that the firebox was too small for the use of wood fuel, but it was commensurate with other dimensions. One of the simplifications was the absence of any side-play in the axle-boxes of the coupled wheels which may have made them a little tight on sharp curves, but no difficulties are on record. They could have worked beyond the Kwae Bridge and up towards Wang Pho, and some difficulties on the curves of the trestle section could be possible. I did not see any on this section although there was one at Kanchanaburi at the time of my last visit. Their work was unspectacular and they seldom were seen except on freight trains. That they lasted until the end of steam in Thailand in the mid ‘70s, many years past their planned life of about 5 years, is tribute to their quality. They could run, too: Ray Murphy having timed one at a sustained 60 mph., 96 km/hr., in Costa Rica, is another tribute.

Some of my readers will know that at many State Railway stations a steam locomotive has been placed on permanent exhibition on a plinth. Authority does not seem to have felt keenly enough about the ‘MacArthurs’ to keep one in such a position, and other than five which went to Cambodia (where one was quickly run into another causing both to be withdrawn), all in Thailand went quickly and quietly to the scrap heap.

The very last in service were in India, not long ago, but they were in very poor condition and have now been withdrawn. A working MacArthur in year 2000? Sorry! You would have to look hard to find one at all! Possibly a wreck in Cambodia; but one of the post-war batch sent to Greece is preserved in a park in Kalamata, on the south coast of the Peloponnesus.

A 'MacArthur' gets refuelled on shed, giving a whole different meaning to the modern term 'logging on'.