I am an Israeli railfan, and I am seeking information about Whitcomb 65 ton centercabs powered by Buda engines. About forty such locomotives were used by the British army (the War Department) in Palestine (today Israel) and Lebanon during WWII, and those had many different cab variations. I've seen several pictures of them, and they actually look rather more like the 80 Tonners presented in Taplines than the locomotives presented as 65 Tonners there.

I would be grateful about any sort of technical and historical information regarding this type of locomotive, especially about variations and their post WWII histories. Also, does anyone know of any models available of such locomotives?

Their works numbers are (a possibly incomplete list):

60131/3-6 60144-5 60150 60170-1/4-7/9 60181-2/4/8-9 60191/3/7 60228 60236/8 60241/5/9 60254/6 60261 60270/4 60309 60315-7/9 60320-1

Thanks in advance, Chen Melling Haifa, ISRAEL

-- Chen Melling (melling@nonstop.net.il), October 26, 2001