FS class R.301

The R.301 was a narrow-gauge 2-6-0T steam tank locomotive for passenger and freight work on the Sicilian narrow-gauge network and in the former Italian colonies of Eritrea and Libya. The R means narrow gauge. The Florence office of the Italian State Railways designed it in the 1910s to replace the rigid four-axle R.401, which damaged the track on tight curves, and the Bissel truck and an axle load under 11 tonnes helped on bends. Costruzioni Meccaniche di Saronno delivered the first fifteen in 1912, and eighteen more were split between Breda, Gio. Ansaldo & C. of Sampierdarena and Officine Meccaniche. The engines used a Hardy vacuum brake. After 1918 thirteen went to colonial railways, and twenty were later rebuilt as superheated R.302s.