Liberation Class

The Liberation Class was a class of 2-8-0 steam locomotives designed for heavy freight work in Europe after the Second World War. The Locomotive Manufacturers' Association drew up the design in 1943 for the Ministry of Supply, at the request of the Technical Advisory Committee on Inland Transport of the British and Allied Governments, as an engine more powerful than the wartime Austerity locomotives and suitable for railways across the continent. The specification asked for a tractive effort of 40,000 to 50,000 pounds and a wide firebox, and the engine and tender were to fit the continental loading gauge. Vulcan Foundry of Newton-le-Willows built 120 of them in 1946, and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration distributed them to Luxembourg (ten, as CFL class 47), Yugoslavia (65, as JZ class 38), Poland (30, as PKP class Tr202) and Czechoslovakia (15, as CSD class 459.0). Duro Dakovic built ten more in Yugoslavia in 1957 and 1958. Two Polish locomotives survive, Tr202-19 at Krakow and Tr202-28 at Jaworzyna Slaska.