 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "2-4-4T" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(December 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Under theWhyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives by wheel arrangement, 2-4-4 is asteam locomotive with two unpoweredleading wheels followed by four powereddriving wheels and four unpoweredtrailing wheels. This configuration was only used fortank locomotives.
Other equivalent classifications are:
The equivalentUIC classification is1′B2′ t (or(1′B)2′ t for a Mason Bogie).
This unusual wheel arrangement does not appear to have been used on themainline railways in the UK. It was however one of the configurations used on theMason Bogiearticulated locomotives, in the USA during the 1870s and 1880s. Five examples were constructed at theMason Machine Works for thenarrow gaugeBoston, Revere Beach and Lynn Railroad 1883–1887. The railway subsequently received twenty-one further examples between 1900 and 1914, constructed by theTaunton Locomotive Manufacturing Company,Manchester Locomotive Works, andALCO. Developmentally, there are two logical ways of reaching this wheel formula: to add a forward axle to a Forney locomotive to improve its ability to negotiate curves, or to add a second trailing axle to a Columbia design, notably in a 2-4-4(T) configuration to expand its coal capacity.
Four 2-4-4T passenger locomotives were built by the Czechoslovak Škoda for Lithuania in 1932 and marked as Tk class. They were seized by the USSR in 1940, then by the Germans.[1] One was used after World War II in Poland asOKf100-1 until 1950.[2]
Other tank locomotives with 2-4-4T arrangement: