Readablewiki

SJ R

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

The R class was a Swedish steam locomotive built for Statens Järnvägar (SJ) in 1908–1909. It had a 0-10-0 wheel arrangement and standard gauge, and was designed to pull heavy iron ore trains on the Iron Ore Line in northern Sweden. When introduced, it was the most powerful steam locomotive in Sweden, a record that lasted until 1930.

SJ built five R locomotives (numbers 974–978) to handle the heaviest ore trains, since the earlier M class needed help from a pusher engine. The locomotives weighed about 84.8 tonnes (engine) and 130 tonnes total, were about 19.85 meters long, and could reach up to 50 km/h. They burned coal and had a driver diameter of 1.3 meters.

In 1914 the Iron Ore Line began electrification, making the R class less needed there, so the engines were moved to regular freight service elsewhere. In 1935 two locomotives were sold to the private Gävle-Dala Järnväg. In 1963 R975 was sent to Denmark and later scrapped there. The remaining three were scrapped in 1973, but one locomotive has been preserved and is kept in running order by the Swedish Railway Museum for special heritage trains.


This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 16:29 (CET).