Although Karel Belčamin's last class to be built was the C14 Pacific, his colleagues found, after his sudden death, a number of unfinished designs which probably would have been quite useful had he lived to build them. Among these was the 2-10-2 shown here, which would have become class E3. The boiler of the C14 remained unchanged, only the position of the chimney being different. The design is interesting in being fitted with a Krauss-Helmholtz leading truck, which was not actually used on the RSR until well after WW2. No doubt Belčamin intended to place the engine in heavy goods service. The good balancing of the four-crank drive would have permitted somewhat higher speeds. Had the E3 been built, a number of older classes could have been withdrawn, including the D5 2-8-0 and its rebuilds, the C6 and its derivates, the D8 0-8-0 and possibly even the E1 0-10-0. It is also conceivable that Šahlmeti would have been spared the trouble of rebuilding the D8 in its various guises. Unfortunately, Šahlmeti was no admirer of Belčamin's work, quite the reverse in fact, so that the E3 never stood the slightest chance of actually taking to the rails.

Text and graphics © Norman Clubb 2014