One of the most pleasurable discoveries I have made on my railfanning trips around Thailand was the survival of a few of the Davenport 500Hp Bo-Bos supplied to the R.S.R in 1952. I had assumed they were long gone and on my first visit to Nakhon Rachasima in north east Thailand was astonished to find one busy shunting the Dmu depot at the rear of the station. Numbered 511-540 they were fitted with a D397 12 cyliner engine running at 1200rpm and had a amximum speed of 75km/h When first in main line use they were often coupled in pairs cabs facing out, two are seen here in an early photo in passenger service The first one I found,in 2006 was #516 seen shunting the DMU maintenance depot at Nakhon Rachasima.
This little engine busied itself all morning first in the freight yard near the station before hauling Hitachi crane #33 and a derelict RHN Dmu out onto the headshunt I was even more pleased on returning to Nakhon Rachasima this year to find #520 equally busy in the yard, Note the immaculate, recently refurbished, B.V brake van next to the engine Not so immaculate are the two examples stored at Makkasan works, Bangkok. #518 and #537 haven't run for a long while
Fantastic serendipity. What I find interesting is that the Davenport carbody is very similar to the carbody of the White Pass & Yukon (Alaska) GE locomotives, #90-100. However, I assume the D397 engine was a product of GM EMD. Does any one have information about the Davenport company for the 1940-1950 period?
Nice to see old power still working. This might be the first Thai engine I've seen that doesn't look ugly. Would've looked better with its original pilot, though.
Davenport video footage first fruit of transferring old, VHS-C footage, using a dazzlebox. Had a lot of problems with the audio at first and also with USB bandwidth but seems O.K now #516 seen busy at Nakhon Rachasima in 2006 [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jxlfzQU1vA"]YouTube - Davenport 516 part 1[/ame] part two features #516 shunting old Hitachi crane #33 and a derelict RHN Dmu out onto the headshunt [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGhDCiNrGt4"]YouTube - Davenport 516 part 2[/ame]
While somewhat shorter, those units have a strong similarity to units owned by our White Pass & Yukon Route. I do agree the front pilot, although obviously quite functional, sure doesn't look very appealing. Boxcab E50
It appears that the power units are caterpillar ones looking at some pics on Rotfaithai posted recently, One mystery less!
