FS Class 410

The FS Class 410 was a class of 25 steam locomotives with an 0-8-0 wheel arrangement that the Italian state railways acquired from the Rete Sicula, the Sicilian network, when the railways were nationalised in 1906. They were designed by the network's research office under the engineer Guglielmo Cappa as part of a programme to replace worn-out inherited stock, and were first numbered 301 to 325 before becoming Class 420 and then 410. The first unit came from Breda in Milan in 1892, 21 more were built at the Sampierdarena works of Gio. Ansaldo & C. in 1893 and 1894, and three followed from Officine Meccaniche in 1903. They were simple-expansion, saturated-steam freight engines with two outside cylinders, slide valves and Walschaerts valve gear, rated at about 600 horsepower, and their small 1,200 millimetre wheels limited them to 45 kilometres per hour. They spent their whole working lives on Sicily.