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Wheel configurations: whats in a name?


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4 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

The first 4-6-2 was designed and made in New Zealand and still exists there. The name Pacific was later applied by the MPRR

 

So it would seem, David.  Thanks for pointing this out.

 

The NZR's Class Q pacific's were indeed designed by their CME, A. I. Beattie (originally from Yorkshire) and built by Baldwin to his specification in 1901.  Ross states that "the 'Pacific' name, which became firmly attached to all 4-6-2s, is said to have arisen because it was shipped across that ocean to New Zealand."  William Withuhn also confirms this.

 

However, Baldwin built the first for home use in the following year, apparently for the St. Louis Iron Mountain & Southern RR, later absorbed by the 'Mopac' (Missouri Pacific RR) hence some U,S. sources perhaps credit Baldwin's home grown product with the origin of the label.

 

Refs: Ross, p156, Withuhn, p65 and Jackson p208. 

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3 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

Sounds like my teenager's line of reasoning. :rolleyes:  :jester:

 

As others have pointed out, some of the names were for types much larger than anything that ever ran in Britain, so it shouldn't be a surprise that the names originated where the types were used.

F-Unit,

I wish I were a teenager, and didn't just sound like one!  :-)

I was just quite surprised that most names originated overseas, but understandable for those configurations that didn't run in the UK.  

Steve

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Very widespread, yes; universal, no. It isn't common across much of Europe, anywhere with strong French or German influence, and I can't even guess how the Russian and Chinese systems work. For "modern traction", variants of the European system seem more common descriptors, but they don't seem to have nicknames, even American ones.

Sorry Kevin , but I have to disagree. I don't know about Germany but the "Nom Usuel" was very familar in France, probably more so than in Britain,  and lists of them appear in most French accounts of locomotive development. Everyone used Pacific,  as here, but Consolidation, Mikado and Mountain were also very widely used with "Prairie" perhaps less common but all the "American" common names were known and used. Looking at French sources "Decapod" seems, there at least, to have normally meant a 2-10-0.

 

I have a scan of a letter dated August 1944 from the Head of Economic Affairs for the French delegation in Washington DC to the Director General of the French Economic Committee in Algeria (by then firmly in allied hands ) about early discussions of a massive order for locomotives for France, following its liberation,  from American loco builders, This refers  to an "avant projet des locomotives type Mikado et Decapod" The Mikado became the ubiquitous 141Rs ("Les Brave Americains")  but the 150 (2-10-0) Decapod never happened.  

So, in French rallway circles, these type names were not just nicknames, though interestingly the Baldwin/Alco outline specifications in English drawn up following these discussions refer simply to "an eight coupled type" and a "ten coupled type" 

 

There does seem to have been some tendency for these names to be less used for tank locos though I have certainly seen the Est'/SNCF  131TBs built specifically for the busy commuter Vincennes line (from Paris-Bastille) referred to as "Prairies". 

 

Apart from the Crampton, there were one or two additional types whose "common names" were French. The 030 (0-6-0) with a separate tender was generally referred to as a "Bourbonnais" if it had outside cylinders and a "Mammouth" with inside cylinders. 030Ts were sometimes known as Böers  though some say that only refers to a particular class built by the CF de l'Ouest. The same is probably true of the  three classes of 120T (2-4-0T) Bicyclettes (from their large closely spaced drivers) also built by the l'Ouest for its Paris suburban services. 

Edited by Pacific231G
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3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

So, do we have any "home grown" names for wheel arrangements, as opposed to classes? And, what descriptos were used in Britain pre-Whyte? Long mouthfuls like "six wheeled goods engine" and "four-coupled express engine" (which would encompass multiple wheel arrangements), I suspect.

 

Hi Kevin,

 

Stephen Lea outlined quite a few variations in a post in the Pre-Grouping section of the forum.  Hopefully this link will take you to the post:

 

Hope this starts the ball rolling,

All the best,

John

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4 hours ago, pH said:


The 2-10-4 wheel arrangement was known as the ‘Selkirk’ in Canada (generally as the ‘Texas’ in the US). There was only one class of Selkirk, built by the CPR for use in the western mountains. The class was named as a result of a competition amongst CPR staff - one of the mountain ranges they were used to cross was the Selkirks.

I've seen the preserved one in Ottowa; it is awesomely big!  You could probably fit a W4 Peckett in the cab.

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In North America competing railroads might take different names for the same wheel arrangement -- one railroad's Niagara became another's Northern or Confederation.

Trains magazine tried (a few decades ago) to expand the Whyte system to include details like engine units that swiveled or not below the boiler (IIRC a Big Boy would be 4-(8)-8-4).  Details that Whyte did not anticipate. 

 

Edited by BR60103
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13 hours ago, sjp23480 said:

 

Strange how many of the names originated in America!

Not really. The Americans because they had to go much longer distances and needed to carry more water and fuel, soon required locomotives with more axles.

So not surprising they had pony or bogies under the cab (for larger fireboxes, due to inferior coal or wood) and front ponies or bogies to help steer on poorer quality track.

So the Americans invented wheel arrangements, when in Britain 6 wheeled locos (2-2-0s or 2-4-0s for passenger and 0-6-0 for freight, sufficed for years.

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9 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

The GER Decapod was rebuilt as a tender 0-8-0.

 

That's right, forgot it lost a wheelset.  Was it still called Decapod?

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13 hours ago, pH said:


The 2-10-4 wheel arrangement was known as the ‘Selkirk’ in Canada (generally as the ‘Texas’ in the US). There was only one class of Selkirk, built by the CPR for use in the western mountains. The class was named as a result of a competition amongst CPR staff - one of the mountain ranges they were used to cross was the Selkirks.

I think the “Texas” name came about because the first road to order a 2-10-4 was the Texas & Pacific, back in the 1920’s - 1925, Lima locomotive works to be exact.

 

On 4-8-4’s, they were known as FEF’s or Northerns but when this type was introduced to southern roads, that name simply couldn’t be used so, on the C&O at least, they were known as “Greenbrier” after a famous hotel the road served. Similarly with the 2-8-4 arrangement, known as “Berkshire” in the north, on the C&O they were “Kanawha’s”

As stationmaster rightly pointed out, my namesake, the mighty Allegheny was named for the range of mountains they were built to take up to 15,000 ton coal trains across, the 2-6-6-6 was simply an extension of the 2-10-4 but a    2-12-6 would have been too long a rigid wheelbase.

 

As has been pointed out, the reason so many of these names originated in the USA was simply because the type either was invented there or became very well used there, to whit: the British only called a 4-4-0 just that, a 4-4-0 whereas the Americans called it, “the American”!

If it seems “strange” or “unfair”, then I suggest some studying.

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12 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

 

Because I've grown so familar with them, it never occured to me that Consolidation wasn't a term much used for a 2-8-0 here. The SNCF 141P and 141Rs were always referred to as Mikados and the 241Ps as Mountains.  French (or at least PLM and SNCF) practice was to incorporate the wheel arrangement expressed in axles into the series (class) number. eg 140C, 131TB, 

 

I’m not disputing anything you say here but in addition, don’t the French also refer to such as a 1-4-1 as a “one hundred forty one” and so forth?

Certainly, my only cheminot friend does but he may be unique!

Cheers,

John

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1 hour ago, russ p said:

That's right, forgot it lost a wheelset.  Was it still called Decapod?

I don't know; perhaps I should ask my grandfather, though given that he died in the 1930s, long before I was born, isn't really possible. I was told by my Dad that he was working at Stratford Works when it was built, allegedly involved with actually building it. Some family history I really ought to check up on.

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2 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Nah - there's no record of Fowler using any of the Great Eastern's discarded components when building the Lickey Banker !  :wacko:

 

Sorry I thought it meant there were two locos called decapod . I know there is no connection to the Lickey banker 

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2 hours ago, Allegheny1600 said:

I’m not disputing anything you say here but in addition, don’t the French also refer to such as a 1-4-1 as a “one hundred forty one” and so forth?

Certainly, my only cheminot friend does but he may be unique!

Cheers,

John

Yes you're quite right John. It's not just cheminots who do that and your friend is certainly not unique. I'm not sure how though how they'd say a loco number with a leading zero such as 040 D 21 Zero quarante I'd guess. The French do seem to have a thing about quoting numeric characters as complete numbers even when they're not arithmetical. I think it comes from their desire to be logical and consistent rather than pragmatic*.

Le train deux deux huit sept would surely be far clearer in a station announcement than deux mille deux cent quatre vingt sept. They also quote telephone numbers as number pairs though that does make them easier to remember.

 

French wheel arrangements are normally written as numbers without hyphenation so it would be 141 C 23 (or possibly 141.C.23)

I've seen Whyte used with and without hyphens but, since I have to deal with both,  find it a useful rule to hyphenate Whyte arrangements to distinguish them from the French system. So I might say the "last steam locomotive kept in running order by the SNCF was a 4-6-0, the ex PO 230 G 353."   

 

*Hence the old joke about the French official refusing something saying "Yes Monsieur, that may be all very well in practice but it could never work in theory."

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9 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

 

*Hence the old joke about the French official refusing something saying "Yes Monsieur, that may be all very well in practice but it could never work in theory."

Sounds like one of Sir Humphrey's excuses for why something  cannot be done - "Yes Minister, that may be....."

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On 24/05/2021 at 11:13, Pacific231G said:

Yes you're quite right John. It's not just cheminots who do that and your friend is certainly not unique. I'm not sure how though how they'd say a loco number with a leading zero such as 040 D 21 Zero quarante I'd guess. The French do seem to have a thing about quoting numeric characters as complete numbers even when they're not arithmetical. I think it comes from their desire to be logical and consistent rather than pragmatic*.

Le train deux deux huit sept would surely be far clearer in a station announcement than deux mille deux cent quatre vingt sept. They also quote telephone numbers as number pairs though that does make them easier to remember.

 

French wheel arrangements are normally written as numbers without hyphenation so it would be 141 C 23 (or possibly 141.C.23)

I've seen Whyte used with and without hyphens but, since I have to deal with both,  find it a useful rule to hyphenate Whyte arrangements to distinguish them from the French system. So I might say the "last steam locomotive kept in running order by the SNCF was a 4-6-0, the ex PO 230 G 353."   

 

*Hence the old joke about the French official refusing something saying "Yes Monsieur, that may be all very well in practice but it could never work in theory."

Describing train numbers by thousand/hundred/last two digits (for a four digit number) is standard practice throughout SNCF and is actually something you get used very rapidly when you're using it (even infrequently).   I have more than a suspicion that French passenges might also be well used to numbers being presented in that way as I've never seen it cause any problems when people are looking for, or directed to, trains.

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34 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Describing train numbers by thousand/hundred/last two digits (for a four digit number) is standard practice throughout SNCF and is actually something you get used very rapidly when you're using it (even infrequently).   I have more than a suspicion that French passenges might also be well used to numbers being presented in that way as I've never seen it cause any problems when people are looking for, or directed to, trains.

I once had an extended interview with RfD for their Freight  Control office at Lille. One part of the interview consisted of being played a selection of tapes of station announcements from around the country, and writing down the train numbers that were given. Most were given as pairs of numbers, some 'chiffre par chiffre', and some in complete, multi-digit, format. The accents were many and varied as well....

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Apologies for this late reply, regarding Texas 2-10-4 locomotives and the associated 2-10-2 wheel arrangement, both of which types were used by several U.S.A. railroads and other countries around the world.  Here's a bit more detail which I collected some time ago about them.

 

In an earlier note in the topic, John (Allegheny 1600) posted, "I think the “Texas” name came about because the first road to order a 2-10-4 was the Texas & Pacific, back in the 1920’s - in 1925, Lima locomotive works to be exact".

 

As John says, the 'Texas' name-tag does indeed originate with the T & P, Class I-1; "the first of which arrived at Fort Worth from Lima's workshops, Ohio, in November 1925.  The 2-10-4s were contracted by the T & P in July, and looking like an elongated A-1 ('Berkshire' 2-8-4), the I-1 incorporated all the eight features that became the hallmarks of Super-power" (plus these 2-10-4 engines had two extra firebox details).

 

The 1925 batch of 'Texas' 2-10-4s were to become the first commercially ordered  Super Power locomotives, a term used by Lima to describe the principles employed in William Woodard's 'Super-power' concept.  Another first for the I-1 2-10-4 was that it was "one of the first two-cylinder locomotives to be priced at more than $100,000". ref: Withuhn p.225 / 226.

 

However, apparently the I-1 wasn't the first locomotive with a 2-10-4 wheel arrangement and that accolade belongs to the A.T.S.F. (Santa Fe) Railway.  On page 185 of 'The Locomotives that Baldwin built', beneath a picture of No. 5012 (a 2-10-4 of the ultimate 'Texas' type, the 5001 series built by Baldwin for the Santa Fe in 1944), the author Fred Westing adds, "Though Lima is credited as the originator of this wheel arrangement, it was Baldwin that built the first 2-10-4 in the U.S., when they out-shopped engine No. 3829 for the Santa Fe in 1919".

 

A little more research in 'Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail' (p.333) shows that the order for this locomotive of October 1917 had begun as a standard 'Santa Fe' 2-10-2 from Baldwin.  However a change (dated May 1919) - "four wheels back engine truck . . if design can be made satisfactory for Mr. Purcell*" created the first 2-10-4 locomotive, A.T.S.F. No. 3829 (Baldwin 52237) which worked from 1919 until 1955.  ref. 'Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail', E.D. Worley, published by Southwest Railroad Historical Society, 1965.

 

And the 'Santa Fe' name tag is synonymous with the 2-10-2 wheel arrangement; the first of this type being delivered from Baldwin, Philadelphia to Topeka shops, of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, in 1903 for use on Raton Pass, N.M. ref: Worley p.202 / 208.

 

Hope this proves interesting to all those who follow the development of the steam locomotive.

 

All the very best,

John

 

*Note: An engineer and an assistant to the president of the A.T.S.F., "John Purcell was put in charge of the Santa Fe's design and fleet management from 1912.  He viewed economy not in terms of thermal performance, but in terms of total costs per mile". ref: Withuhn p.114.  

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1 hour ago, Old Gringo said:

Apologies for this late reply, regarding Texas 2-10-4 locomotives and the associated 2-10-2 wheel arrangement, both of which types were used by several U.S.A. railroads and other countries around the world.  Here's a bit more detail which I collected some time ago about them.

 

In an earlier note in the topic, John (Allegheny 1600) posted, "I think the “Texas” name came about because the first road to order a 2-10-4 was the Texas & Pacific, back in the 1920’s - in 1925, Lima locomotive works to be exact".

 

As John says, the 'Texas' name-tag does indeed originate with the T & P, Class I-1; "the first of which arrived at Fort Worth from Lima's workshops, Ohio, in November 1925.  The 2-10-4s were contracted by the T & P in July, and looking like an elongated A-1 ('Berkshire' 2-8-4), the I-1 incorporated all the eight features that became the hallmarks of Super-power" (plus these 2-10-4 engines had two extra firebox details).

 

The 1925 batch of 'Texas' 2-10-4s were to become the first commercially ordered  Super Power locomotives, a term used by Lima to describe the principles employed in William Woodard's 'Super-power' concept.  Another first for the I-1 2-10-4 was that it was "one of the first two-cylinder locomotives to be priced at more than $100,000". ref: Withuhn p.225 / 226.

 

However, apparently the I-1 wasn't the first locomotive with a 2-10-4 wheel arrangement and that accolade belongs to the A.T.S.F. (Santa Fe) Railway.  On page 185 of 'The Locomotives that Baldwin built', beneath a picture of No. 5012 (a 2-10-4 of the ultimate 'Texas' type, the 5001 series built by Baldwin for the Santa Fe in 1944), the author Fred Westing adds, "Though Lima is credited as the originator of this wheel arrangement, it was Baldwin that built the first 2-10-4 in the U.S., when they out-shopped engine No. 3829 for the Santa Fe in 1919".

 

A little more research in 'Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail' (p.333) shows that the order for this locomotive of October 1917 had begun as a standard 'Santa Fe' 2-10-2 from Baldwin.  However a change (dated May 1919) - "four wheels back engine truck . . if design can be made satisfactory for Mr. Purcell*" created the first 2-10-4 locomotive, A.T.S.F. No. 3829 (Baldwin 52237) which worked from 1919 until 1955.  ref. 'Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail', E.D. Worley, published by Southwest Railroad Historical Society, 1965.

 

And the 'Santa Fe' name tag is synonymous with the 2-10-2 wheel arrangement; the first of this type being delivered from Baldwin, Philadelphia to Topeka shops, of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, in 1903 for use on Raton Pass, N.M. ref: Worley p.202 / 208.

 

Hope this proves interesting to all those who follow the development of the steam locomotive.

 

All the very best,

John

 

*Note: An engineer and an assistant to the president of the A.T.S.F., "John Purcell was put in charge of the Santa Fe's design and fleet management from 1912.  He viewed economy not in terms of thermal performance, but in terms of total costs per mile". ref: Withuhn p.114.  

As previously pointed out, the Canadian Pacific also had some 2-10-4s, but they called them 'Selkirks' after the nearby mountain range. Some were semi-streamlined and used on passenger trains.

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selkirk_locomotive

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How, if at all, did American ralroaders describe locos that had "boosters", two cylinder auxiliary steam engines fitted to the loco's trailing axle or the first axle of the tender to give extra power for starting or at low speeds on steep gradients. I know Nigel Gresley also used them on the GNR and LNER* . 

More to the point, how would they be described in the UIC system that uses letters for powered axles and numbers for unpowered axles, given that these were unpowered most of the time?   

 

*The first, fitted experimentally on a GNR Ivatt C1 Atlantic , used compressed air from a Westinghouse pump but that was soon replaced by steam. I don't know whether air boosteres were ever used in America- their efficiency must have been incredibly low.

Edited by Pacific231G
to clarify in the footnote that it was not Gresley who fitted the frst "booster" to a loco. just the first in Britain.
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On 01/06/2021 at 12:55, kevinlms said:

As previously pointed out, the Canadian Pacific also had some 2-10-4s, but they called them 'Selkirks' after the nearby mountain range. Some were semi-streamlined and used on passenger trains.

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selkirk_locomotive

Is that a case of the class being given a name rather than the wheel-type? I guess with relatively few classes around the world it becomes a bit academic.

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