The first locomotives we drew inspirations from comes from this era: the beautiful machine officially called Central Pacific Railroad #60, a 4-4-0 steam locomotive. But best known as the Jupiter, it became famous for being the first locomotive to meet at the Promontory Summit in Utah during the historical Golden Spike ceremony that celebrated the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad, which crossed the United States from East to West. As you can see below, it features 4 leading wheels and 4 driving wheels (that’s what the 4-4-0 numbers stand for), and a magnificent modernist design that, for today’s standards, makes it look almost fairytale-like. This locomotive was in service until 1901, when it was sadly scrapped – the picture you can see below (taken from Wikimedia) comes from the replica in display at the Golden Spike National Historic Site.

(Photo from Wikipedia[en.wikipedia.org])

Our in-game counterpart is this little friend here. It keeps its toy-like aspect, like the mental picture that we all have when we think of old trains from the Wild West era. You can easily imagine outlaws trying to aboard it, right? Rest assured, you won’t have to worry about robberies in Train Valley 2! Our first locomotive features the Jupiter’s characteristic big conic chimney and its frontal lantern, although the red pilot (cowcatcher) looks more like Jupiter’s sister engine, Leviathan.



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England is one of the most important countries in the history of the railroad – after all, it was an Englishman who invented the first high-pressure steam engine, and steam locomotives were developed in Great Britain during the 19th century. The UK still holds the honor of keeping the oldest operational railway: the Middleton Railway, which has been working since 1758 (although, truth be told, only for recreational and historical purposes now).
But the locomotives we want to introduce you to do not haul from this early days, but the early 20th century. The first one is the Claud Hamilton, a 4-4-0 steam locomotive named after the chairman of the Great Eastern Railway. It is universally considered one of the classic locomotive designs: you will surely recognize its iconic cylinder-shaped locomotive with big wheel arches that remind of the art-deco style.

(Photo from Wikipedia[en.wikipedia.org])

Claud Hamilton shares some traits with the locos of the B4 class. Both of them were powerful machines, capable of hauling the heaviest trains, be them full of passengers or goods. The B4 and its revision, the B4X, were slightly more powerful, but the Claud Hamiltons were much more popular: only 33 B4 / B4X were built, against 121 Claud Hamiltons.

(Photo from Wikipedia[en.wikipedia.org])

This is the in-game counterpart of those two beautiful machines. As you can see, it features their long, sleek body, as well as its big wheel arches.


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This German locomotive was so successful that, having been built for the first time in 1908, it has been in service until the 70s. More than 3,700 were manufactured and sold all over Europe, and more than 500 P 8 engines were in service for 50 years. Not bad for an old steam machine, huh? It used a 4-6-0 wheel arrangement (four leading wheels on two axles and six powered and coupled driving wheels), a setup that had been really popular in the USA known under the name of "Ten-wheeler".
The iconic aspect of the P 8 comes from its practicality: its inventor, engineer Robert Garbe, was a no-nonsense type of guy who just wanted the simplest and most efficient design. Thanks to the superheated steam technology, it was really fast for its time (up to 100 km/h), so Garbe wanted it to be as aerodynamic and easy to drive as possible.

(Photo from Wikipedia[en.wikipedia.org])

As you can see, its in-game counterpart shares some characteristics: check the two steam domes behind the chimney, for instance. Steam domes were a measure of security, a way of keeping the main steam pipe above the level of water to minimize the risk of water entering the cylinders of the engine. Although locos tended to have just one steam domes, the P 8 featured two. There’s another important (if subtle) difference: the driver’s cab was tapered to give it lower wind resistance.


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(Photo from Wikipedia[upload.wikimedia.org])

Walt Disney was a big fan of trains. He built a small railroad line in his suburban estate, he designed the first Disneyland with a railroad on its territory. Therefore, when in the 60s he began building his second park, Disney World, the issue of the railroad was resolved in advance. Its creation was taken up by his long-time colleague Roger Broggie. The park needed steam locomotives that looked in the spirit of the 1880s and he decided to look for them, instead of building from scratch, as they did for the first Disneyland. He contacted railroad historian Gerald Best, who advised him to go to the railroad boneyard in Merida, Yucatan. There was a 3 ft (914 mm) narrow-gauge system, the same gauge as the Disneyland Railroad. Broggie found there suitable locomotives that could be repaired. The Walt Disney Company bought 4 locomotives built by Baldwin Locomotive Works and one built by Pittsburgh Locomotive and Car Works.

It turned out that the Pittsburgh locomotive was unsuitable for repair, but the four Baldwin locomotives received a new life. The original, dilapidated boilers were replaced with new, smaller boilers built by Dixon Boiler Works. Their worn-out wood and steel cabs were replaced with new ones made of fiberglass, and they were given new tenders, which used the trucks from the originals. Many of the smaller original parts on the locomotives such as the domes and the brass bells on top of the boilers, the wheels, and the side rods were successfully refurbished and retained. The locomotives' fireboxes were also modified to burn diesel oil. Replicas of their builder plates were also made to replace the originals.

These locomotives received the names of the creators of the park: Walt, Lillian, Roy Disney (numbers 1, 2 and 4) and Roger Broggie (number 3). The prototype of our in-game version was the number 2 locomotive, Lilly Bell. It is steam locomotive 2-6-0: two leading wheels on one axle, usually in a leading truck, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and no trailing wheels. This arrangement is commonly called a Mogul. It began its work in 1971 when the park was opened, and only in 2010, it needed serious repairs. The locomotive was sent to the Strasburg Rail Road. The repair went on for several years and on November 23, 2016, Lilly Bell began to transport passengers in Disney World again. Such a nice second life for a small steam locomotive and a great story for all of us!

Let’s go to Japan! The Class D51 was a Japanese 2-8-2 locomotive: it had two leading wheels on one axle, then eight powered and two driving wheels in four different axles, and finally two trailing wheels in another axle. While usually the firebox (where locomotives burnt coal) was placed above the driving wheels, the 2-8-2 arrangement put it behind them, which allowed a larger firebox and therefore more power and higher speeds. This arrangement was first called “the Mikado” in the West after a previous Japanese locomotive (the Western nickname changed to “the MacArthur” during the World War II for obvious reasons).

(Photo from Wikipedia[en.wikipedia.org])

The Japanese railway system was built and operated by the imperial government with military and political ends, as a means to connect distant feudal communities in order to establish the central imperial power. Thus, it wasn’t only a means of transportation for goods and service: it was a political instrument and a symbol of power, a way to tell everyone that the Emperor authority reached the last corners of Japan. The Class D51 was built from 1936 to 1951, and it was designed by no other than Hideo Shima, a legendary engineer: he was the driving force and inspirator behind the creation of the first bullet train! Because of the war efforts, many parts that were meant to be built in steel were substituted by wood – but in spite of that, they kept circulating until 1975. They were almost exclusively deployed in Japan, although a small number of them deployed in Russia, Korea, and Taiwan were seized and used after the Japanese retreat at the end of World War II.


Train Valley 2’s in-game counterpart is this beauty. You can see the similarities in the front: the circular smoke box door, the lantern and a feedwater heater; after it comes the chimney, and finally the uninterrupted covering for the upper sand box, feedwater and steam dome.

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Back in 1931, the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (the German National Railway) started looking for a new, more powerful locomotive that could substitute the Prussian ones (like the P8 we already talked about), about to be withdrawn by then, as a fast goods train locomotive. They were looking for a 2-8-0 wheel configuration (two leading wheels, eight powered wheels) capable of moving around 18 tons of axle load. The German manufacturer of locomotives Berliner Maschinenbau offered them a different design, a 2-8-2, that could achieve that performance with more ease. The DRG approved it, and thus the DRB Class 41 was born.
Well, it wasn’t that easy, to be fair. It took them six years to come up with two working prototypes, and then a year of tests before it started full-scale production. These two prototypes were used to transport cattle trains to Berlin, and that got these engines the moniker of the Ochsenloks: the Oxen Locos. They were relatively cheap and easy to manufacture, thanks to the design principle of Einheitsdampflokomotive: a standardization process that started in the 20s when the newly-founded DRG decided to fix the mess that was its fleet, with more than 210 types of steam engines. If you ever struggle with Train Valley 2, just think of the engineers who had to manage that many trains!

(Photo from Wikipedia[en.wikipedia.org])

Thanks to this strive for standardization, every single locomotive manufacturer in German participated in building the DRB Class 41 – and that allowed them to manufacture a lot of engines comparatively fast. The start of the Second World War reduced the interest in fast goods train locomotives so much that by 1941 they stopped building them – but in those three years, 366 Class 41 were produced. After the war, two-thirds of these engines went to West Germany and one third to the East, with some odd ones sent to Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the USSR.


The in-game version of the Ochsenlok is easily recognizable for following the principles of the Einheitslokomotiven, with its iconic large Wagner smoke deflector, its black locomotive frame and red wheels, and long boiler with a short chimney. Looks powerful enough to take some cattle in record time to Berlin, right?

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From Germany, we hop on a train (of course) on its way to the USSR during the 50s to discover the Soviet passenger steam locomotive class P36. The last mainline steam locomotive built in Russia, the General (a nickname that it got thanks to the gold stripe down its side which reminded of the decorations on a general’s shoulder) was a powerful 4-8-4: four leading wheels, eight powered and coupled driving wheels, and four trailing wheels.
By the early 40s the Soviet passenger fleet consisted mainly of engines of the class Su 2-6-2, designed two decades before, which were reliable but not powerful enough for long passenger trains. Then they were substituted by the class IS (named after Iosef Stalin), powerful but with a higher axle loading that made it incompatible with a lot of lines. When the Second World War ended and the Soviet economy recovered, the passenger traffic increased, which convinced the authorities that the USSR railroad network needed a new engine class for its passenger trains.

(Photo from Wikipedia[en.wikipedia.org])

After some different proposals, the first prototype of the P36 was built in 1950 and tested thoroughly at the outskirts of Moscow. The machine was powerful, fast, and efficient; after some more prototypes and a few tweaks, the P36 started its mass production… until, just three years later, the 20th Communist Party Congress decided to stop steam locomotive construction and switch for electric and diesel-electric locomotives. On June 29, 1956, a P36 with the serial number 10420 left the workshop with a sign written on its smokebox door: “1869 - 10420 - 1956 Last steam locomotive built by Kolomna Works”. It was the last steam locomotive built in the Soviet Union… but it would be in active service with stakhanovist determination until 1974.


And here’s our in-game version of the P36. You can see the iconic stripe, the red star on its front, and the red plow and wheels. Our locomotive is blue instead of green (we need to keep one color for all the locos in the generation), but it shows similar sleek and futuristic lines. This machine surely commands respect!

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(Photo from Wikipedia[ru.wikipedia.org])

During the Second World War, 70 RSD-1 diesel locomotives, designed by the American Locomotive Company, were shipped to the USSR to be used in ordinary line service. Also, these engines were shipped to Iran for use on the Trans-Iranian Railway. They were diesel-electric, that is, they burnt fuel to produce electricity, and that electricity, in turn, powered the traction motors. When the war ended the Soviets kept many of these engines, and Stalin ordered to reverse-engineer them to adapt them to the metric system and Soviet norms and regulations. Thus was born the TE1, which was pretty much a knockoff of the RSD-1; in 1953 they started prototyping the third iteration, and three years later the TE3 entered mass scale production.
The TE3 is a Co’Co’+Co’Co’ machine, which means (these wheel arrangement notations are crazy) that it had two units with two six-wheeled bogies (a chassis with a wheelset) with all axles powered, with a separate motor per unit. It’s a common enough wheel arrangement, most suited to heavy freight work because of its good traction. Let’s remember the harsh climate of the USSR, where ice and snow were not precisely uncommon – this locomotive surely made use of the traction provided by its extra wheels!
Its main weakness was its difficulty to work with variable loads, which lead to constant power cuts, as well as its tendency to overheating resulting in water losses from the cooling circuit. When this happened in water-deprived regions of the USSR, engine drivers were forced to use diesel as coolant… which, as you surely imagine, it’s a fire waiting to happen. In spite of this, the TE3 became rapidly popular, and in time it became the most widely spread locomotive in the USSR. Almost 6,800 were built until it went out of production in 1973.


Our in-game version is this locomotive with a similar sturdy and pragmatic design – a no-nonsense machine that will get you and your load there through snow, ice and sleet. The plow, as well as the frontal lights and lantern, will surely remind you of the TE3.

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The United States of America had started to develop Diesel-powered engines in the 30s. The American Locomotive Company (ALCO) pioneered this endeavor by producing custom streamliners (custom engines designed for specific purposes). General Motors decided to join very soon after seeing their success, so they started producing standardized locomotives under the banner of their subsidiary Electro-Motive Company, later rebranded as Electro-Motive Division. In 1935 they started building their E- and F-units line of locomotives for passenger trains. They quickly became popular, but they had a problem: their wheel arrangement made them less useful when crossing mountainous terrain. The newly designed F locomotive addressed that problem, with a B-B wheel arrangement (two trucks with two powered axles), but there was another issue with them: they used a steam generator for heating passenger trains in long travels… and there just wasn’t enough space in the F7 for the extra water. They tried to fit water tanks here and there, even putting them in the baggage cars and piping the water to the engines – but at some point, they just acknowledged the problem and designed the FP7… which is pretty much just a 1.2 meters-longer F7!

(Photo from railpictures[www.railpictures.net])

Check the side of the locomotive in this picture: can you see there’s a large distance between the first side porthole and the first filter grille? That’s where the extra space for the water tank was added. The corresponding extra space under the body either remained empty or was filled with another water tank that looked like a transversal barrel. 381 FP7 were produced for 4 years to made different routes all over the United States. They, along with their smaller (but more popular) sisters the F7 locos, remained in service until the 70s (a bit longer in Canada). Thanks to this, its shape (and that of the F7) is one of the easier to recognize by American train lovers, being now entrenched in the popular memory of the whole continent.


And what about our in-game version? Here you have it, with his high front, double windows, and frontal lantern and lights, making it look a bit like a dog’s muzzle. As you can see, there is also a lot of space between the portholes, and the long longitudinal grille is also very recognizable.

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By the 50s, the British railway system was a bit of a mess – slow, unreliable, operating at a loss and even unsafe. The government decided to bring it up to date and take measures to make it more attractive, both to passengers and freight operators. The main measure to be taken was the quick substitution of steam machines for diesel locomotives: it took them less than 10 years to produce implement up to 2,500 engines. Sadly, this haste meant that there was no time for proper research and development, building and testing prototypes thoroughly, etc – and actually, the whole plan is now regarded by historians as an incredibly expensive failure, but that’s another story.
The Class 37 was one of these machines. The company English Electric had some experience producing locomotives for railways in East Africa; they adapted one of their designs and presented it to the authorities. The design was quickly accepted and even more quickly produced: they didn’t even bother with building and testing prototypes! Luckily, they worked well enough – so well that some of them still remain active in different duties.

(Photo from Wikipedia[en.wikipedia.org])

This machines had a Co’-Co’ wheel arrangement, a common wheel arrangement with six-wheeled bogies with all axles powered by separate traction motors (similar to the TE3, which had two of these). Capable of hauling heavy trains without problems, they were used for pretty much everything, from passenger lines to freight work; so they became one of the most popular in the British islands, especially in Scotland and the East Anglia region where they formed the backbone of the InterCity services. Train lovers nicknamed them as “Tractors” because of the sound of its engine. And the story goes that a Class 37 loco is haunted by the ghost of a driver who was killed by an object thrown from a train passing in the other direction – if you are in a British train and a horn blows by itself, or a fire bottle randomly sets off, maybe you are riding the infamous British Cursed Loco…


Its in-game counterpart features no ghost, but you surely can recognize the shape and design of the Class 37 in it. See the curved triple window in the front, the short square front with its stoppers, and how the roof goes down again in its back.

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(SPMW 207 at Donner Pass, 2017 - photo by Mike Haire from Railroad Picture Archives[www.rrpicturearchives.net])

Our inspiration came from the units SPMW 207 and SPMW 209 assigned to Union Pacific Railroad's Roseville Subdivision, California - both Leslie Rotary Plows, they were originally built with steam power and rebuilt during the 1950s to power the blade assembly by diesel locomotive traction motors. Today they are regularly sent out to move the "Sierra Cement" snow found on the Donner Pass Line.


Observe the Doctor's signature circular blade assembly encased in fire engine red armor in the front, along with a leftside chute and a bulky, Train Valley 2 yellow car body equipped with longer access ladders containing the crew compartment, several observation windows and housing both diesel traction motors and the rotary engine (a necessary simplification stemming from the way locomotives work in Train Valley 2), with a bright orange warning light on the roof. A projection of power and reliability - qualities needed the most for the tasks ahead.

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Let’s travel to the cold north to discover the first locomotive of the fourth generation, the VR Class Dv12, which as of today is still the standard diesel-hydraulic locomotive of the Finnish railway network. The Dv12 was built as a general purpose locomotive, both for passenger and freight work. With a B-B wheel configuration (two trucks with two powered axles), the interconnection of its axles (that makes for an individual axle to slip pretty much impossible) give this locomotive great traction for its weight. In spite of having a comparatively low power of “only” 1000 kW, the Dv12 allows for just one crew to operate two or even three units at the same time.

(Photo from Wikipedia[en.wikipedia.org])

Thanks to its versatility the Dv12 didn’t become obsolete until all the main lines of the Finnish railway network were electrified. 192 of these locomotives were built during two decades until they went out of production in 1984. However, many of them are still in use, if mostly in unelectrified and less frequented side lines. Sometimes they are called back from the bench to pull cargo trains or do shunter work (moving wagons and railroad cars around for assembling or disassembling trains in classification yards). The oldest active Dv12 is 56 years old… and there are no plans to retire them for good in sight. The good ole’ Dv12 still has some fight in it!


And here you have the in-game counterpart of the Dv12! Look at the windows and the long front that make it look a bit like the muzzle of a (slightly worried) animal, but above all at the characteristic design of the horizontal white line. This locomotive is ready to cross any field, snow-covered or not!

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This locomotive is a familiar sight for all German train lovers: the definitive (and most numerous) revision of the most popular family of diesel locomotives in Germany, it became the backbone of the West Germany diesel-powered train fleet from the 70s up to the reunification. The DB class 218 had a B’-B’ wheel configuration (two bogies with two powered axles under the unit). Its main feature in comparison with its predecessors in the V 160 family was its more powerful engine that allowed for a single engine to provide tractive power and electrical train heating, thanks to an attached generator (while the DB Class 217 needed a separate engine for heating).

(Photo from Wikipedia[en.wikipedia.org])

Almost 400 of these locomotives were produced during the 70s. Thanks to its high power and speed (topped at 140 km/h), its ability to work in multiple with engines from other classes, and a low-speed gear capable of pulling heavy freight trains, it quickly became the most important locomotive in West Germany. With the increasing electrification of railway lines and the popularization of diesel multiple units (trains that have the engines incorporated and therefore do not require separate locomotives), the DB Class 218 progressively focused mostly on freight trains. Also, after the reunification of Germany, it proved useful for the still unelectrified lines in East Germany. For one reason or another, even if they are slowly being replaced by more modern machines, these veteran engines are still in use!


The Class DB 218 was revised in the 80s with the addition of two new exhaust devices, two chimneys that granted the new 218s the nickname of “rabbits” because they looked like, well, two floppy ears. Our in-game version (which has the same name), however, is more inspired by the first version of this locomotive. It keeps the distinctive solid and bulky shape, as well as its small windows – a machine that states clearly that it is 100% ready for any kind of hard work!

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Amtrak, the operator of most intercity passenger trains in the USA, introduced the EMD SDP40F – a diesel-electric train intended to replace the aging diesel locomotives inherited by the company when it was founded, and therefore to become the most important engine for passenger trains in the US. However, in just a few years several derailments started to break the confidence of the company in this locomotive. The weight of the steam generators used for heating, the vibration of baggage cars – whatever the reason, this machines derailed one time after another, and railroads started banning it for good until Amtrak decided to move on to another diesel locomotive that was in use on short-distance lines: the EMD F40PH. With its B-B wheel configuration, a high power output, and a maximum speed range of 166 to 177 km/h, it rose to the challenge so well that the F40PH were in production until as late as 1998.

(Photo from Wikipedia[en.wikipedia.org])

The EMD F40PH is still in service in commuter railroads, especially in Canada, where they are the main pillar of the Canadian railway company Via Rail long-distance trains – up to the point that it was featured in the Canadian $10 bill! More than 500 of these engines have been produced (including variants), and its longevity has led to all kinds of conversions, additions, rebuildings, and customizations. They have been used mostly for long-distance trains, but also in short-line and freights. The Trains magazine estimated that each of them has traveled 282,000 km per year on average!


In its in-game cousin (his name is The Chief) you can find the strong lines of its front and the curved windows that make it look, if not angry, at least starkly determined to get to its destination no matter what. A serviceable and powerful train that picked up the gauntlet when the opportunity came, The Chief rose to the challenge and became a staple for trains in North America.

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The first locomotive from this time that we are going to discover is the ChS8, a Soviet locomotive engine designed and built by Škoda. Back then, the Czech manufacturer Skoda was still a state-owned Soviet company; the ChS8 was produced in Czechoslovakia but used mostly in Russia and Ukraine. It was an 8 axle locomotive, developed for pulling very long passenger trains at 100 km/h or faster. Thanks to this, it helped to mitigate a problem that affected the Soviet railway network since the end of the 70s: the increasing passenger traffic was in conflict with the need for high volume freight lines; since the strained Soviet economy could not afford new lines, the USSR needed existent trains to be more efficient by adding more cars. That, in turns, created the need for more powerful locomotives.

(Photo from Wikipedia[en.wikipedia.org])

Here enters the ChS8, the most powerful AC passenger locomotive ever designed in the USSR… which, because of the turns of history, was relatively short-lived. Three prototypes were built in 1983 and sent to Ukraine for tests and adjustments. 30 locomotives were built in 1987, 50 more in 1989… and then the USSR collapsed. In just a couple of years, the former Soviet republics had more urgent things to care about than trains. After the disintegration of the USSR, passenger turnover in Russia and Ukraine fell dramatically, so there was not a great need for such powerful locomotives. Some of them are still in service, although in the last decade the Russian railways are turning to more efficient locomotives like the EP10 and EP20.


Here you have the in-game counterpart of the ChS8, with a similarly solid, strong, no-nonsense design. See also its two square-shaped frontal windows and its side windows, distributed in pairs except for the crew’s window and the last one. And check the roof for something you will in all this era’s locomotives: the pantograph, the apparatus that collect power from the overhead line.
Today’s post is a great example of the close relationship between the history of trains and History in general. The ChS8 is especially interesting for appearing in such an important critical moment for people, and how it affected its implementation, usage, and final fate.

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After the Second World War, the Italian national railroad company FSI (Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane) decided to invest in new locomotives, faster and more potent. The E.626 and E.636, built during the Fascist regime, were simply not powerful enough. In 1953, the FSI started working in a new model engine meant to be mounted on the modified chassis of the E.636. Five years later, the first prototypes of the E.646 and E.645 locomotives were produced. Just a few years later they designed and built a 4-axle locomotive with a similar concept, the high-speed E.444, which would be ironically nicknamed the Tortoruga (tortoise).

The E.444 was a success, but in just a few years the FSI realized they needed new locomotives not just faster and more potent, but also more modern, adapted to modern systems of control (instead of just to the old electromechanical systems). After 40 years of service, the first Italian-made locomotives were obsolete – not to say simply limping its way after many tweaks repairs. On top of that, more modern engines such as the E.646 were less and less useful due to the increasing number of passengers after the economic recovery of the 50s and 60s, the “Italian miracle”. In order to avoid problems transitioning to a brand new type of machines, they decided not to start a design from scratch, go back to the field-tested E.636 and modernize it. The first E.656 was built in 1975; when they went out of production in 1989, a total of 461 engines had been built over the years. The E.656 has a B-B-B wheel configuration: three independent two-axle bogies, all of them individually powered by separate traction motors. It’s a rheostatic electric engine – which means that it uses a system of resistance to avoid excessive amperage at its start, thus reducing the risk of an electric overload. Funny enough, even though it is more powerful than the Tartaruga, with a +25% tractive effort, it is also significantly slower (150 km/h vs 200 km/h)… at least in ideal circumstances: in old lines, or when coupled to old coaches, the Tartaruga could not reach its max speed anyway.

(Photo from Wikipedia[en.wikipedia.org])

The E.656 are all-purpose locomotives and they have been used on every kind of work, from freight to passenger transport. Reliable and powerful, they are capable of hauling heavy loads in difficult terrains – of which the mountainous Italy has quite a lot. Its nickname, the Caimano (alligator) was chosen by an actual train lover, just like you: every time the FSI built a new locomotive, they called a contest in its official magazine to choose a name with the fans. Of all the entries, they liked Caimano the most – and just like it happened with the Tartaruga, they painted the animal of the new logo on the sides of the locomotives. Although with significant updates and tweaks, the Caimanos are still in service in the Italian railways.


In the in-game counterpart of the Caimano you can see featured the same rectangular-shaped windows, the circular ones in the sides, the prominent front, and its two circular lights. The E.656 collects its power from an overhead line, so in this locomotive you can also see the pantograph in the frontal part of the roof.

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Before we dive into the locomotive of the day, it’s worth explaining a few key details about the history of rail transport in China – a history so turbulent that it helped to topple a ruling dynasty. Creating an efficient railroad network for a country so big that amounts to a whole continent is not exactly an easy endeavor – so much that we could say that they are still ongoing. On top of that, they started sort of late: by mid-19th century some top-level politicians and intellectuals called for the building of the first railways, but the very conservative Qing court rejected the idea. Apparently, they thought the steam engines were a “clever but useless” idea, and they feared the railways would eliminate natural defensive barriers and harm agriculture.

Because of this, the very first railroads in China were built by the British in Shanghai… but since it didn’t have approval from the Qing government, it was dismantled only a year afterward. Just a few years later, the Viceroy of Zhili managed to convince the Empress Dowager to build a railway line from a coal mine to a nearby city. In order to sway her, he built a 2 kilometers railway from her residence to her dining hall. Even though, according to stories, the Empress was worried that the steam locomotive would disturb the feng shui of the imperial city and had the train pulled by eunuch slaves, in the end, she approved the construction of the railway line.

In the next years, railway construction lived a fast development: China’s defeat in the first Sino-Japanese War convinced the government of the need for modernization – and the most powerful nations of the world were also pressing to get concessions to build railways, settlements, and mines in China. In the course of 15 years, Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Japan, Russia, and even Belgium build around 9,000 km of rails. This interference, in turn, angered the Chinese, which prompted the government to permit provinces to create local railway companies and sell shares to the public. Some of these provinces bankrupted, though, and the Qing government sought to nationalize these local companies and offer them to foreign banks in exchange for loans.

Now hold on tight, this gets interesting. This attempt at nationalization angered the public even more, and it sparked the creation of the Railway Protection Movement. The government dispatched troops to suppress this movement. A still-secret revolutionary movement took the opportunity to launch an attack, the Wuchan Uprising. And this uprising kickstarted the Xinhai Revolution, the war that overthrew the Qing Dynasty. In a nutshell: a two-thousand years old imperial dynasty ended because they tried to take some people’s trains away. You don’t mess with train lovers!

The first half of the 20th century was marked by World War II and the Chinese Civil War that established the Popular Republic of China. Some railways were dismantled as a war strategic measure, some others were created. In 1949, China had around 22,000 km of usable railway network – a low number for a country that big. After decades of war, the communist government rolled up their metaphorical sleeves and put themselves to work. In the first five years, 6,100 km of new railway were built. The Great Leap Forward was a mixed bag, with misguided efforts that pushed the Chinese railroad and engines beyond their capacity causing lots of accidents and problems. Ironically, they tried so hard that it actually slowed down the construction, in some places for decades.

Despite some improvements in the system, the Cultural Revolution slowed down the building of new railways, and only new 16,000 km were set (when their initial goal was of more than 100,000 km by the 70s). During the 80s construction pretty much stopped, with government money going elsewhere – although it was also the time when steam engines were replaced by diesel and electric locomotives. And we arrive at last at the protagonist of the day, the SS8.

(Photo from Wikipedia[en.wikipedia.org])

The Shaoshan 8 (SS8 from now on) is a semi-high-speed electric locomotive, the eighth iteration of the “dynasty” of Chinese electric locomotives. Diesel and electric engines took more time to become popular in China because labor was so cheap that steam was still under use until the 80s. The first SS1 was built during the 60s; the first SS8 was produced in 1994, and it's batch production started three years later. It’s a Bo’Bo’ machine, a quite popular axle arrangement that we’ve seen in many other machines by now: two bogies with two powered axles.

Their first route was the Kingguan Line, which linked Beijing with Guangzhou; currently, it serves the Shanghai—Kowloon and the Beijing—Kowloon lines, two of the most popular lines in China (and quite long: they take 20 and 23 hours respectively). Kowloon is the old name of the train station in Hong Kong; as you surely can figure, trains from Shanghai and Beijing to Hong Kong are of key importance. The SS8 pantograph had to be adapted to access Hong Kong, and until last year it was the only electric train allowed to enter the city. Thanks to this, the SS8 is a true icon of the recent past of the Chinese railroad network.

The SS8 was, for some time, the fastest Chinese locomotive: in 1998 it broke the Chinese speed record with a top speed of 239,6 km/h on a test run. That record lasted for some time until the popularization of high-speed trains in China during the 00s. Its nickname is “the Broom”… but to be honest, we have no idea why it is called that – maybe because it sweeps the railway leaving nothing behind? We’ve tried to find a reliable source to confirm it but we couldn’t find any, so if any of our Chinese-speaking players can clarify the story, we’ll be happy to update this blog!


And what about the in-game version of the SS8? You can see the serious-looking front, with its square windows and protruding nose, and the iconical stripped plow. The long board on its side and the pantograph are also very recognizable. This machine is used to crossing very long distances and won’t stop at anything!

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(Photo from Wikipedia[en.wikipedia.org])

The Eurosprinter is a whole family of electric locomotives built originally for the European market, but it became so popular that it spread as far as Korea, China, and the US. It’s got an important peculiarity: it’s completely modular, which facilitates its maintenance and makes it easier to customize to different lines. They are used both for passenger and freight work; its use is stated in their name: the U in 64 U stands for Universal use, while a freight Eurosprinter would wear an F (like the ES 64 F).

The first prototype of the Eurosprinter came up in 1992, and they went to mass production in 1996. With some variations, their production stopped in 2010. Thanks to its modular nature, they’re capable of working in many different situations – for instance, they are adapted to all four European electric systems. It’s got the well-known Bo’Bo’ configuration, and it’s usually capable of reaching up to 230 km/h with a power output of 6,400 kW (that’s where the 64 in its name come from!).

We say “usually” because the ES 64 U is officially the fastest conventional electric locomotive. In 2006, the locomotive 1216 025-5 reached a top speed of 357 km/h when doing tests before its delivery to the Austrian Federal Railways company ÖBB. This broke a record that had resisted since 1955 when SNCF's BB9004 attained 331 km/h between Lamothe and Morcenx on France


You can see the in-game counterpart of this locomotive, which features the same symmetrical appearance and its triangular side windows, and its long pantograph. It sorts of look like a two-headed snake, right? This beauty is ready to cross your best railway lines at full speed!

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The TGV is the whole line of French high-speed trains (the letters stand just for “Train à Grand Vitesse”). Its first prototype was built in 1969 and funny enough they worked with gas turbines (basically burning gas oil to produce energy) instead of electricity. Regardless of their performance, the 1973 energy crisis prompted the French authorities to discard this prototype, deeming it to be uneconomic. On the other hand, France had started building nuclear power stations all over the country, so there was plenty of (comparatively) cheap electricity to be used…

So, in the end, their engineers turned to electricity from overhead lines and took many of the new technologies developed for the failed TGV 001, like high-speed brakes, aerodynamics, and new signaling systems. Several years later, the first electric prototype was completed and deployed for testing, and after some trials, the French administration decided to commit to the TGV project and started to fund it for good. In 1980 the first high-speed line was opened. After a few years, a good part of the French territory was covered by high-speed rails; in 1994, the Eurostar service connected continental Europe to London crossing the Channel Tunnel.

(Photo from Wikipedia[upload.wikimedia.org])

The POS itself is in service since 2006; it is a curious specimen, having been built by connecting single-deck carriages of the earlier TGV Réseau with new power cars – and the now free TGV Réseau power cars are also in use with other carriages in hybrid sets, so the Réseau spawned not one but two “lineages” of high-speed trains. The POS power cars have the particularity of being asynchronous: in case of failure, the broken engine can be isolated in order to make the rest work without its output, thus allowing it to reach the station to get fixed without interrupting the service.

The TGV is famed for its safety: it has never suffered a major accident in its entire history. But that’s not the only reason for its fame: it’s also insanely fast. The POS itself is a record-breaking train: in 2007 it set a new world speed record on conventional rails, reaching up to 574.8 km/h. Because the train was slightly modified for these trials, it is considered a somehow unofficial record – but this max speed is still impressive, especially when combined with the safety record of the TGV in general. So if you ever ride a TGV, enjoy the ride without worrying for a second at how fast you’re going!


Our in-game counterpart keeps the same slender, elegant lines, with the bullet-shaped nose and wide frontal window. You can also recognize its long and stretch lateral windows. It’s name is Champion, and you can guess why. This train won’t stop at anything to get you to your destination – and fast!

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If we’re talking about high-speed trains, there’s only one place where this trip should end to come full circle: the very place where they started speeding up, that is, Japan. The first true high-speed train was the Tokaido Shinkansen, which began service in 1964 just a few days before the Tokyo Olympics. It was a real revolution! For the first time, it was possible to go back and forth Tokyo and Osaka, the two largest Japanese cities, in the same day: it started as a 4 hours trip, but in just a few months they managed to shorten it to three hours and ten minutes.

This train was quickly nicknamed “the Bullet Train” for the bullet-like shape of its nose. It was an immediate success – so much that it changed the whole way of making business in Japan, and the life of the Japanese as a whole since it allowed day work trips between these two capital cities for their economy. In less than three years it reached the 100 million passenger mark – and an impressive figure of one billion passengers in 1976. Its success convinced the authorities to extend the high-speed rail network – and it was a living example of success that helped to convince the world of the advantages of high-speed rails. Without the shade of a doubt, this is one of the many instances of train transportation well implemented changing society for good.

(Photo from Wikipedia[en.wikipedia.org])

The E6 series is their latest evolution. The first bullet trains ran at a maximum of 210 km/h; today’s Shinkansen are capable of reaching a max speed of 320 km/h. In order to reach their famed speed and regularity, the Shinkansen employs some of the most advanced technology. For a start, their rail lines are completely separated from conventional lines and designed to help trains reach their full potential with as few curves as possible. It has the usual Bo’Bo’ wheel arrangement of these trains; its engines use (via pantograph) a highly powered overhead in order to overcome the limitations of the direct current that power the Japanese electrified rails.

We’re talking about engines because, as happens with lots of high-speed trains, the E6 Shinkansen doesn’t have a locomotive as such; instead, each car is individually powered, which allows for faster acceleration and deceleration. This is very important for the Shinkansen since it has more stops than any other high-speed train in the world; it needs that extra kick so as not to lose too much time with every stop. And the living testament of the advanced technology of the Shinkansen is its safety: in his whole history, the Shinkansen trains never have had an accident. The E6 series, the one operating as of today, started its service in March 2013 and has no expiration date yet.


Its in-game counterpart has the same sleek, nimble features that make the Bullet Trains look like something directly from a sci-fi movie… and of course, its iconic bullet-shaped nose. This train is ready to take you all the way to the future without even slowing down – and in the most comfortable ride of your life too!

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