railways

Its a shame this message was deleted, as this was a challenge I have been researching since it was posted.

I know that the 4-0-4-2 is a wheel configuration for a locomotive, and I know that there was a locomotive called the Albert. What I don't know is the further details, like the country of origin, the year it was first commissioned or additional details.

But I am still digging.

I was thinking 4042 might be a locomotive number. In South Africa it would have been a GEA Garratt, built between 1945 and '47. In UK there would be a wealth of choices from the pre-grouping days, although if it retained that number after nationalisation in 1948 it would have been ex-GWR. I don't know too much about numbers from other parts of the world. Of course if 4042 and Albert were one and the same locomotive, it would limit the possibilities. Intriguing!

4042Albert, you've got quite an interesting library of UK railway books which seem to be fairly well spread across the regions and to concentrate on the age of steam. I've got some modern railway books and a lot more dealing with railways outside UK. We seem to have only one railway book in common.

4042Albert - I normally fire for my own club, Friends of the Rail, but I have fired for Rovos Rail. We share a depot with them at the moment, and they call on us when they're short of crew. They also very kindly allowed us to fire their locos as "3rd man" when we were in training a few years back. The Blue Train is a superb experience - I did it a few years ago from Pretoria to Victoria Falls. Thanks for pointing out the errors - I too got quite bored when entering all those books! Drop me an e-mail if you've got any spare time in Pretoria next March and if I'm around (I travel abroad a lot) you can have a look at our locos.