Mastodonte dei Giovi (locomotive)

The Mastodonte dei Giovi was a double steam locomotive built for the steep Apennine stretch of the Turin to Genoa railway across the Giovi Pass, which was inaugurated in 1853. The engineer Germain Sommeiller coupled two well-proven two-axle 0-4-0 locomotives of Stephenson design back to back, with a semi-permanent but detachable coupling and a jointed platform so that a single driver and stoker could run the pair. Ten pairs were built between 1853 and 1855, five by Robert Stephenson and Company in England and five by John Cockerill and Company at Seraing in Belgium. A pair delivered 382 horsepower and could haul a train of 130 tonnes at 12 kilometres per hour on a 3.6 percent gradient. The name was borrowed from a large fossil found while the tunnel near Busalla was excavated. The pairs served until the mid 1870s, when Beugniot locomotives replaced them, and some units were then split and rebuilt as separate tank engines that were scrapped in 1911 and 1912.