well, ok it is not Russian and it is not a decapod, but the idea is the same. It was most likely built for the Ausies as part of military support.
Or it may have been built for something else, and then sold them after the war.
The Russian decapods were built for the Russians but after the war relations soured and they were re-gauged and sold to American Railroads. So regardless of what gauge a locomotive has now might not be the way it was built.
It might have been left behind in Africa or more likely in India or Burma and moved to Australia later in its life.
A very intriguing mystery! I’ve only read about U.S. Army standard gauge locos being used overseas, and those were in Europe. Could it have been purchased postwar and shipped to Australia? Hawaii had narrow gauge operations on Oahu, but I don’t know if that was 3’6" or not, and it would probably be Navy, anyway.
I looked through the book “The Locomotives That Baldwin Built” by Frederick Westing, and it doesn’t mention this locomotive in particular, but it does mention an order for 3’3-3/8" gauge Mikado locos for India in 1943. A guess would be that the U.S. was helping to shore up all of the railroads in the area at that time. I’m not sure about how much damage was inflicted on Australian locomotives by Japanese planes prior to that, but that is probably why they were delivered.
The pacific theater was awash in ALCO locomotives due to lend-lease via the commonwealth of nations agreements plus the US military railway authorites also brought their own into the theater.
I was in Vietnam in 1967-1968 time frame and was also in Thailand 68-69 while in the Air-Force. I had a professional Bolex 16 mm camera and a number of 35mm cameras while in SEA. In Thailand, I was stunned to find that almost all the steam engines in Korat and those doing long haul freights there were narrow gauge ALCO mikados outshopped in 1943 and 1944. Mikes were the giants of the Thai rail system in the late 60’s. They were taking delivery of brand new Kawasaki mikes from Japan from the early 60’s up to that time, too.
All Thai steam ran on teak wood knots and stump seconds. These were pilled high in the yards. The larger Kawasaki’s had a massive side pump water turbine on the engineer’s side and would blast 6" diameter high pressure water jets into and along the wood piles as the loco would crawl along the wood pile on the loading service track. As it went along, the logs and knots were blown into the air along with many Cobras and deadly Krates that slithered off from their warm wood pile repose. Quickly, low wage, expendable crews, often just boys, would crawl up on the pile and toss wood into the tender where it was carefully stacked by the fireman and engineer. I have images of the naked crew members, off in a far corner of the yard, taking a quick wash and shower of sorts under the turned on water spigot on the firemans side of the tender. All crews wore formal railroad uniforms while on duty
The ALCOs were all 400 series cab numbers and the Kawasaki’s were 700’s, 800’s and 900’s. The Kawasaki mikes were a bit more beefy than the ALCOs and were virtually brand new and were never used in any yard or freight work, beyond blasting the wood piles. Low fare, t
It’s my understanding that the “MacArthur” name derives from Gen. Douglas MacArthur; during World War II, it was substituted for the prior Japanese-origin name “Mikado.” Also called “Mike.”