Power type Steam Build date 1944 (16), 1953 (1) | Total produced 17 | |
Builder American Locomotive Company (4)Baldwin Locomotive Works (8)Davenport Locomotive Works (4)East African Railways (1) | ||
The EAR 27 class was a sub-class of 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) gauge 2-8-2 USATC S118 Class steam locomotives. The first eight members of the class were built in 1944, and were acquired second hand by the Tanganyika Railway (TR) from the Malayan Railways in 1949. By the time these eight locomotives entered service on the Central Line in Tanganyika in 1949, the TR had been succeeded by the East African Railways (EAR), which designated them for a very short time as its MR class, but then, as part of a comprehensive reclassification of all of its locomotives, redesignated them as its 27 class.
In 1950, the EAR acquired eight further 27 class locomotives from the Malayan Railways, and in 1953 another 27 class locomotive was built in the EAR's Dar es Salaam Workshops, using spare parts acquired from the Nigerian Railways. The 27 class therefore eventually reached a total of 17 locomotives.
Class list
The builders, build year and fleet numbers of each member of the class were as follows: