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The Rete Adriatica Class 500 (Italian: ''Gruppo 500''), classified after 1905 in the Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (FS; Italian State Railways) as Class 670 (Italian: ''Gruppo 670'') was an unorthodox and iconic cab forward 4-6-0 steam locomotive. ==Design and construction== The Class 670 was designed by Eng. Giuseppe Zara of the Rete Adriatica (one of the two major railway companies in Italy at the beginning of the twentieth century); its design was very unorthodox, as the boiler was reversed on the frames, so that the cab and the firebox were leading and supported by the bogie, while the cylinders were at the rear. The compound arrangement was also highly peculiar, as it was the first experiment with the Plancher compound engine: this arrangement meant that there were four cylinders, in which the two HP ones and the two LP ones were paired together respectively on the left-hand and the right-hand side of the boiler, and each pair was served by a single piston valve through a crossed-port arrangement. While simplifying the valve gear, this feature made it difficult to equalize the work done by each pair of cylinders, and this provoked hunting.〔Kalla-Bishop, p. 53〕 The locomotive also had a peculiar arrangement for its tender; the coal was kept near the cab on the left side of the locomotive, while a tender carried either 15000 or 2000 liters of water, depending on the series. The first locomotive, initially classified as RA 3701 (later changed to RA 500), was taken to France and subjected to trials with a dynamometer car loaned by the Chemin de Fer de l'Ouest, which were successful. As a result, other forty-two were built by Ernesto Breda and the German firm Borsig werke. When in 1905 the railways in Italy were nationalised, the Ferrovie dello Stato initially reclassified the locomotives as Class 690 (FS 69XX), but were ultimately classified as Class 670. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「FS Class 670」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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