Henry Dreyfus created the timeless design worn by the streamlined 4-6-4s that pulled the Twentieth Century Limited. New York Central rostered North America’s largest fleet of Hudsons. In this photo, one of the speedsters prepares to depart LaSalle St. Station in Chicago. W.C. Merle, II In the early 1920s, as passenger train lengths grew and […]
BY Neil Carlson The development of the 4-8-2 grew out of the need for a locomotive with greater power than the Pacific to handle heavy passenger trains in mountainous terrain. The first 4-8-2 in North America was built at Alco’s Richmond plant and delivered to the Chesapeake & Ohio in 1911. Chessie wanted an engine […]
Northern Pacific 4-8-4 No. 2662 storms up the 1.8 percent grade at Muir, Mont., in 1947. Warren R. McGee With the general speed-up of passenger train schedules in the 1920s, the need arose for a more powerful version of the 4-8-2. Although it had adequate adhesion, the 4-8-2 lacked the raw horsepower to accelerate a […]
Rayonier was one of several logging companies that operated articulated 2-6-6-2 locomotives. No. 120, an oil-burning 2-6-6-2 built in 1936, hauls a trainload of freshly cut lumber near Humptulips, Wash., on September 28, 1960. Philip C. Johnson collection In the 1890s, the Gotthard Railway in Switzerland operated the first Mallet locomotives. They were compound articulated […]
One of Seaboard Air Line’s high-speed, twin smokestack 2-6-6-4s – the largest steam engines on the railroad’s roster – charges out of Raleigh, N.C., with a freight in 1941. Homer R. Hill During the latter half of the 1920s the single expansion articulated locomotive had evolved into a very capable machine. It could lug a […]
Mammoth C&O Allegheny No. 1603 summons its 110,200 pounds of tractive force to haul a heavy coal train through West Virginia. Chesapeake & Ohio In 1940, the Chesapeake & Ohio needed new locomotives to meet a burgeoning demand for transportation. Its biggest engines were a fleet of single expansion 2-8-8-2s, purchased in the mid-1920s to […]
A scant three years after Alco introduced the Mallet to America (with the delivery of B&O’s sole 0-6-6-0 in 1904), the Erie took delivery of three camelback 0-8-8-0 Mallets – the first eight-coupled Mallets, also built by Alco – and put them to work as helpers on Gulf Summit in New York state. Southern Railway […]
In 1928, the Northern Pacific went shopping for a locomotive that could eliminate doubleheading on the eastern end of its Yellowstone Division between Mandan, N.Dak., and Glendive, Mont. NP’s line through the Badlands had a series of long grades in both directions that made helpers impracticable and had long been one of the railroad’s operational […]
Better than most railroads, perhaps, the Union Pacific understood fast freight service. With an expansive network of lines spread across the western states, the railroad had to maintain fast schedules in order to remain competitive. Mindful of this, UP purchased the first heavy fast freight locomotives: unique three-cylinder 4-12-2s, built by Alco from 1926 to […]
The proving ground for Union Pacific’s locomotives was a 75-mile portion of its busy main line between Ogden, Utah, and Evanston, Wyo. Eastward trains faced a climb through the Wasatch Mountains on grades of 1 percent or better. It was an expensive line to operate, particularly given UP’s practice of running big trains that typically […]
In his article “Nine Decades in the Service of Steam” in the Summer 2004 issue of Classic Trains magazine, James A. Brown looks at the final, glorious years of Stratford Big Shop, Canadian National’s last steam-locomotive overhaul facility. Below is a PDF that includes the layout of the Canadian National Stratford Shop. Please note that […]
Norfolk & Western Y6-Class 2-8-8-2 No. 2136 thunders east near Delbarton, W.Va., with a coal train on March 25, 1959. Bruce R. Meyer Bruce Meyer has been on a search for steam since he started taking railroad photographs in the early 1950s. Meyer made a dramatic record of steam’s final years in the Midwest and […]
