Scandinavian Pacific-1

The railways of Finland, as in many other countries, were undergoing the transition from steam to diesel traction at the end of the 1960's. However, at the time of their centenary in 1962, the Finnish State Railways still had in operation some six hundred and fifty steam locomotives, which handled about half the country's rail traffic.

When the first railways were built in 1862, and until the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, Finland was a Duchy of the Russian Empire, which accounted for the rail gauge being the Russian standard of 5 ft.

It is interesting to recall that the locomotive on which Lenin escaped across the frontier into Finland in October 1917 was presented to Mr. Kruschev during his State visit to Finland in June 1957.

To escape the Russian Tsarist police on that historic flight, Lenin was disguised as the fireman (K. P. Ivanov), but ironically the engine concerned, No. 293, was an American-built 4-6-0 of Class 'Hk-1.' The locomotive chosen for our picture is one of the 2-cylinder Pacifies of Class ' Hr-1 ' which superseded the 4-6-Os.

Twenty-two of these fine machines were built between 1937 and 1957 by the firms of Lokomo and Tampella; numbered from 1000 to 1021, they had 6ft 3in wheels and could show a good turn of speed on the principal passenger trains out of Helsinki to the north, and our picture shows No. 1015 on a Helsinki-Kouvala express.

The boilers on these Pacifies are interchangeable with those of the big 2-8-2s of Class ' Tr-1,' the last steam locomotives to be built in Finland.

The ' Hr-1 ' engines, due to their heavy axle loading, were limited to the main lines in the south of Finland, and all but two of the class were allocated to Helsinki, where they did good work until steam came to an end in Finland.