FS Class 600

The Class 600 was a 2-6-0 Mogul steam locomotive of the Italian State Railways, regarded by some as the first modern Italian steam locomotive. It was designed in Florence for the Rete Adriatica by engineers including Enrico Plancher and Giuseppe Zara to haul both passenger and freight trains over steep, curving lines. It introduced the Italian bogie, a development of the German Krauss-Helmholtz design that gave good curving without a four-wheel truck, and it paired internal cylinders with outside piston valves and Walschaerts valve gear in a compound engine. In all, 248 engines were built between 1904 and 1908, among them batches from Gio. Ansaldo & C. of Genoa. Starting in 1929, 153 of them were rebuilt with superheaters as Class 625, and the rest were withdrawn before 1940.