The 4-8-2 class 241 P vehicles of the French state railroad Société nationale des chemins de fer français (SNCF) were the last Mountain locomotives (wheel arrangement 2'D1', French 241) built in Europe. The 241 P # 16 is exhibited in the Cité du Train railway museum in Mulhouse. From Wiki: The locomotives were built immediately after the end of World War II, when locomotives were urgently needed for the heavy express trains on the main lines of the French rail network. The 241 P was a further development of the 241 C series, which appeared in 1930 as a prototype before the war and of which no further series production was started due to the outbreak of the war.
Operationally, the locomotives were intended for express trains with up to 20 four-axle express train cars on the SNCF's kilometer-long gradient lines, e.g., in Burgundy. At the same time, they were intended to be gentle on the superstructure and economical. Although they only had an output of 4000 hp (the SNCF 242 A 1 had over 5000 hp), they were able to meet the requirements when they appeared. The 241 P 1-26 were assigned to the Sud-Est region, while the 27-35 locomotives were assigned to the Nord region.
The 241 P was created at a time when the electrification of the national network was already a done deal. Thus, from the beginning, it was intended only for operation until electric traction was put into service. With the introduction of the first electric locomotives, the machines were gradually transferred to the Est and Ouest regions before being displaced by modern traction there as well. Some remained in the Sud-Est region, but they were transferred from the Ligne impériale (Paris-Lyon-Marseille) to the Ligne du Bourbonnais (Paris-Clermont-Ferrand).
The 241 P's most notable performances came towards the end of their careers, when they had to stand in (singly) for double traction of the initially trouble-prone class A1AA1A 68000 diesel locomotives in front of heavy trains. Because of their performance and reliability, they were highly regarded by the personnel.
Retirements began in the early 1960s. In January 1969, the SNCF still had 17 of these machines in its fleet. The last commercial operations took place on September 28 of that year, when the 241 P # 7 ran for the last time between Clermont-Ferrand and Moret-les-Sablons and the 241 P # 17 brought an express freight train from Nantes to Le Mans. For an exhibition, the latter still drove to Le Havre under its own power on November 14, 1969.
