Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 38, 2007

The Victorian Railways H class was an express passenger steam locomotive that ran on Victorian Railways from 1941 to 1958. In 1936, the major design requirements were finalised by the Victorian Railways Design Office for a steam locomotive that was capable of hauling a load of 550 tons (560 t) at 20 mph (32 km/h) up Ingliston Bank. Intended to eliminate the use of double heading A2 class locomotives on Overland services on the steeply graded Western line to Adelaide, wartime restrictions led to only one locomotive being built. Nicknamed "Heavy Harry", H 220 was the largest non-articulated steam locomotive ever built in Australia. H 220 never operated in its intended role as power for The Overland, although it did make a brief appearance on the Western line in 1949 when it ran a series of trials with the VR dynamometer car on goods trains from Melbourne to Ballarat. It is believed that H 220 is now the world's only remaining example of a three-cylinder 4-8-4.