Just as his ill-starred B16 Atlantics were entering traffic, Belčamin was already drawing up an alternative design using the well-tried boiler of the class E1 0-10-0. The clean, English-looking lines of this engine were certainly more in keeping with the classic Belčamin style and her 2100 mm driving wheels would have given her a fair turn of speed. The two-cylinder compound drive was also retained from the B16, the outside valve gear optimising maintenance. None of this however compensates for the inherently limited adhesion of the four-coupled locomotive and so the B16A would have had just as hard a time as her cousin, the B16 that was actually built.

Documents discovered during recent refurbishing work on the Akohniçe offices included an illustration of the B16A in a royal blue livery similar to that used by the Great Eastern Railway.

Text and graphics © Norman Clubb 2012