Friends of the Rail Forum

These slides have deteriorated but they are of something I thought was rare: the palm oil estates in North Sumatra with their 0-4-4-0T Mallets, with their outside and(!!) inside frames (front unit has outside frames, back unit has inside frames - for more flexibility on curves?). And these were certainly the only locos I've ever seen with this arrangement.
This place (P.N.P. VII) also had the famous Lotter-Muller 0-10-0's that looked like 2-6-2's because they had the connecting rods for the link between the 1st and 2nd drivers and the 4th and 5th drivers inside the wheels instead of outside. Unfortunately the 3 of them were all under repair so we did not see them in action.

Rob wrote:While this is again in North Sumatra, Indonesia it is, of course, an oil palm estate and not sugar!

I believe the Mallets had inside frames at the rear to accommodate a larger firebox as they burned the (cracked) oil palm kernels and those in Java burned bagasse; low calorific value fuels. They are all, of course, traditional Mallet compounds. A couple of the smaller Mallets in Java had inside frames front and rear.

These pictures also look to have been taken at Dolok Ilir and Pematang Siantar is the name of the nearest large town. 46 is from OK while all the others are from Du Croo & Brauns (70, 77 and 101) note they also have mixed frames but traditional Walschaerts valve gear.

The 0-10-0 Luttermöllers were OK products, again they were also found in the sugar mills in Java.

Indeed steam finished in the oil palm plantations here more than 10 years ago but some of the locos survive preserved. See http://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/tra ... atra01.htm