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 Milwaukee Road class A2 no. 919, built 1901 | |||||||||||||||||
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Under theWhyte notation for the classification ofsteam locomotives bywheel arrangement,4-4-2 represents a configuration of a four-wheeledleadingbogie, four powered and coupleddriving wheels, and twotrailing wheels supporting part of the weight of the boiler and firebox. This allows a larger firebox and boiler than the4-4-0 configuration.[citation needed]
This wheel arrangement is commonly known as theAtlantic type, although it is also sometimes called aMilwaukee or4-4-2 Milwaukee, after theMilwaukee Road, which employed it in high speed passenger service.[1]
While the wheel arrangement and type nameAtlantic would come to fame in the fast passenger service competition between railroads in the United States by mid-1895,[2] thetank locomotive version of the4-4-2 Atlantic type first made its appearance in the United Kingdom in 1880, whenWilliam Adams designed the1 Class4-4-2T of theLondon, Tilbury and Southend Railway (LT&SR).[3]
The4-4-2T is the tank locomotive equivalent of a4-4-0 American typetender locomotive, but with the frame extended to allow for afuel bunker behind the cab. This necessitated the addition of a trailing truck to support the additional weight at the rear end of the locomotive. As such, the tank version of the4-4-2 wheel arrangement appeared earlier than the tender version.
The tender version of the4-4-2 originated in the United States of America, evolving from the less stable2-4-2 Columbia type wheel arrangement, and was built especially for mainline passenger express services. One advantage of the type over its predecessor4-4-0 American type was that thetrailing wheels allowed a larger and deeperfirebox to be placed behind thedriving wheels.[4]
The first use of the4-4-2 wheel arrangement for a tender locomotive was under an experimental double-firebox locomotive, built to the design of George Strong at theHinkley Locomotive Works in 1888. The locomotive was not successful and was scrapped soon afterwards. The wheel arrangement was named after thesecond North American4-4-2 tender locomotive class, built by theBaldwin Locomotive Works in 1894 for use on theAtlantic Coast Line of thePhiladelphia and Reading Railway.[5]
Baldwin's ideas on 4-4-2 tender locomotives were soon copied[disputed –discuss] in theUnited Kingdom, initially byHenry Ivatt of theGreat Northern Railway (GNR) with hisGNR Class C1Klondyke Atlantic of 1898. These were quickly followed byJohn Aspinall'sClass 7, known as theHigh-Flyer, for theLancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&YR).
The first European Atlantic locomotive type was theAustro-Hungarian IId class of theKaiser Ferdinands-Nordbahn (KFNB). It was built from 1895 and later became the 308 class on theImperial Royal State Railways (kaiserlich und königlich Staatsbahnen, kkStB).
It was followed from 1901 by the XVIb class of theAustrian Northwestern Railway (Österreichische Nordwestbahn, ÖNWB) that later became the kkStB class 208, and then by the kkStB 108 class. They were not numerous, though. All three classes together numbered a little more than one hundred locomotives.[6]
Apart from theAustrian locomotives, theHungarian State Railways (Magyar Államvasutak or MÁV) also operated some Atlantic classes.
In 1939, theNational Railway Company of Belgium (NMBS/SNCB) introduced sixClass 12 streamlined Atlantic locomotives on the fast lightweightboat trains that ran on the 124 kilometres (77 miles) line between Brussels andOstend.[7] Designed by Raoul Notesse to be capable of speeds of 120 to 140 kilometres per hour (75 to 87 miles per hour) and based on the successfulCanadian Pacific Railway4-4-4Jubilee type semi-streamlined locomotives, but incorporating the ideas on streamlining of André Huet, they were built byJohn Cockerill atSeraing. They were fully streamlined, except for openings to provide access to thevalve gear and motion, and hadinside cylinders with outside valve gear to reduce oscillation at speed. The class remained in service until 1962.[8][9]
The Atlantic, known in Germany as the 2'B1' wheel arrangement, enjoyed some short-lived popularity in the German states. Between 1902 and 1906, theS 7 [de] class of thePrussian state railways was built to two competing designs, 159 locomotives to the design ofAugust von Borries and 79 locomotives to that ofAlfred de Glehn. Between 1908 and 1910,Hanomag built 99Prussian S 9 locomotives. All were four-cylinder compound engines working on saturated steam. The Prussian Atlantics were withdrawn shortly after the First World War and some were given to France, Belgium and Poland.[10]
Atlantics were also adopted in some other German states.
In India, the broad gauge E class was rebuilt in the 1940s and survived into the 1970s.
In 1895 the then private3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge Nippon Tetsudo (Japan Ry) sought, without success, to use low grade coal from the online Iwaki and Iryana mines in conventional narrow firebox loomotives. At that time theBaldwin Locomotive Works, in the United States of America, offered and guaranteed to build locomotives to burn successfully any fuel sent to them. For this case, Baldwin employed a wide firebox placed behind the drivers and over a trailing truck, building 24 4-4-2s and 20 2-8-2s to a single order in 1897 - recording that "They gave excellent satisfaction, and are wonderfully free steamers."[11] Following nationalization, the Atlantics becameJapanese Railways6600 Class. Six more locomotives, built to the same design, were built for theCape Government Railways in South Africa immediately following the completion of the Japanese order.[12][13]
By the 1980s, the last Atlantics at work in the world were a few3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm)Cape gauge examples in Mozambique. These survived reported retirements to operate into the beginning of the 21st century, becoming some of the last working steam in the country. Exceptionally, they had outlasted much larger and newer power, including Garratt locomotives.
The Manila Railway (ancestor to thePhilippine National Railways) purchased five 100-class locomotives from theNorth British Locomotive Company in 1906. These were the first tender locomotives in Philippine service. In 1949, 7 American-built4-8-2s were also numbered as the 100 class, presuming that the locomotives have been retired afterWorld War II.
In 1897, additional locomotives were urgently required by theCape Government Railways (CGR) for the section south ofKimberley, at a time when locomotive production inEngland was being disrupted by strikes, while simultaneously the steamship companies had suddenly doubled all their freight rates to theCape of Good Hope. As a result, six locomotives were ordered fromBaldwin Locomotive Works. These were built in addition to a just fulfilled order for 24 Atlantics, designed and built for the then private3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge Nippon Tetsudo, later nationalized into theJapanese Railways.[12][13]
The locomotives were completed within sixty days of receipt of the order and, to circumvent the exorbitant freight charges of the steamship lines, were shipped to the Cape by sailing ship, with the result that the steamship companies promptly reverted to their old rates. Nicknamed theHatracks, the locomotives were designated4th Class on the CGR. When they came onto South African Railways (SAR) stock in 1912, they were considered obsolete and designated Class 04. They remained in SAR service until 1931.[12][13]
The4-4-2T Atlantic was introduced into the United Kingdom in 1880 byWilliam Adams, who designed theLT&SR 1 Class on behalf ofThomas Whitelegg of theLondon, Tilbury and Southend Railway (LT&SR). This was the first use of this wheel arrangement in the world. It was intended for heavy suburban trains around London and 36 locomotives were built bySharp, Stewart and Company andNasmyth, Wilson and Company between 1880 and 1892.[3] Adams later developed the type into his successful suburban415 class for theLondon and South Western Railway.[14]
The LT&SR continued to build4-4-2 tank locomotives after 1897, with theClass 37,Class 51 andClass 79.Henry Ivatt of theGreat Northern Railway (GNR) also built sixtyClass C2 tank locomotives between 1898 and 1907, for use on local and commuter trains in Yorkshire and North London.
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During the first decade of the twentieth century, the Atlantic tank locomotive became very popular in the United Kingdom.
FollowingHenry Ivatt’sGNR Class C1Klondyke Atlantic of 1898 andJohn Aspinall'sL&YR Class 7High-Flyer, of which forty were built between 1899 and 1902, a lot of interest was shown in the Atlantic type by British railways during the first decade of the twentieth century, especially for express passenger train service. Between 1902 and 1908, Ivatt built eightylarger boilered versions of his GNR Class C1, which were known as theLarge Boiler Class C1. These remained in service until the early 1950s.
In 1903, for use in comparative trials against his own designs,George Jackson Churchward of theGreat Western Railway (GWR) purchased three FrenchDe Glehn compound4-4-2s, beginning with theGWR no. 102La France and followed by two larger locomotives in 1905. Fourteen members of his two-cylinder2900Saint class locomotives were subsequently either built or rebuilt with this wheel arrangement, including one four-cylinderGWR 4000Star class, no. 40North Star. All of these were later rebuilt to a4-6-0 wheel arrangement.
Wilson Worsdell of theNorth Eastern Railway (NER) designed his classesV and 4CC between 1903 and 1906, while his successor on the NER,Vincent Raven, introduced hisV/09 andNER Class Z classes between 1910 and 1917. By 1918, however, the4-4-2 type had been largely superseded by the 4-6-0 type in the United Kingdom.[4]
TheLondon, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR)H1 class, introduced byD. E. Marsh in 1905 and 1906, was copied from the plans of the Ivatt C1 class, with minimal alterations. In 1911,L.B. Billinton was granted authority to construct a further six examples incorporatingSchmidtsuperheaters, which became theLB&SCR H2 class.
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William Paton Reid of theNorth British Railway built twenty examples of his North British Atlantic, later known asH class, between 1906 and 1911. Two more were built after his retirement and the whole class became the LNER C11 Class in the 1923 grouping, whileJohn G. Robinson of theGreat Central Railway (GCR) introduced his8D and 8E classes of three-cylindercompound locomotives in 1905 and 1906.
Several 4-4-2 locomotives were preserved in the United Kingdom. Bearing in mind that this information may become outdated over time, some known examples are:
The original Atlantics in the United States were built with the hauling of wood-frame passenger cars in mind and came in a variety of configurations, including the four-cylinderVauclain compound which had previously been used on express4-4-0 American,4-6-0 Ten-wheeler and2-4-2 Columbia locomotives. Around the 1910s, railroads started buying heavier steel passenger cars, which precipitated the introduction of the4-6-2 Pacific type as the standard passenger locomotive. Nonetheless, theChicago and North Western,Southern Pacific,Santa Fe and Pennsylvania railroads used4-4-2 Atlantics until the end of steam locomotive use in the 1950s, with some even being used in local freight and switching service.[citation needed]
One of the best-known groups of4-4-2s in the United States was thePennsylvania Railroad's vast fleet of E class Atlantics, culminating in thePRR E6s class.
Although Atlantics were sometimes used as mountainhelpers prior to theFirst World War, they were not well-suited for mountain grades. They had large-diameterdriving wheels, in some cases exceeding 72 inches (1,829 millimetres), which were adequate for 70-to-100-mile-per-hour (110-to-160-kilometre-per-hour) trains. They tended to oscillate at higher speeds when the drive rods were connected to the rear pair of drivers. This was not standard practice in the U.S., however. The nation's biggest user of the type was theSanta Fe with 178. All of these were built with 73-inch (185-centimetre) or 79-inch (201-centimetre) drivers and the drive rods connected to the first pair of driving wheels.[citation needed]
In 1905, Santa Fe engineer Charles Losee was widely reported to have driven Atlantic type 510, a 1904 balanced compound built byBaldwin, the 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometres) from Cameron to Surrey inIllinois with a three car special train in one minute and thirty-five seconds. If that had been confirmed by a disinterested party, the 106 miles (171 kilometres) per hour speed would have set a world record. These were never used on the road's Rocky Mountain grades; even on the flat plains of Kansas the Atlantics were soon overwhelmed by the weight of the newest all-steel, 85-foot (26-metre) passenger cars. Despite their excellent performance, most were retired long before other locomotives of their era, and the few survivors wound up on light local trains.[citation needed]
TheChicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (Milwaukee Road) used a streamlined Atlantic type on its midwesternHiawathapassenger train service that was instituted in 1935. Four4-4-2 locomotives of theMilwaukee Road class A were constructed for this service in 1935. These4-4-2s were reportedly the first steam locomotives ever designed and built to reach 100 miles per hour (160 kilometres per hour) on a daily basis.[15]
These Atlantics with their distinctive streamlining shrouds were designed by industrial designerOtto Kuhler. Their calculatedtractive effort was 30,685 pounds-force (136 kilonewtons). An unusual feature of this locomotive was the drive onto the front coupled axle, which improved riding quality at speed.[15]
The locomotives were cross balanced and ran on 84-inch (2,134-millimetre) drivers. They had an oil-fired 69-square-foot (6.4-square-metre) grate and a rated boiler pressure of 300 pounds per square inch (2,100 kilopascals), which gave the boiler a high capacity in relation to the cylinders. Designed for a light-weight train of five to six passenger cars, they were considered as probably the fastest steam locomotives ever built in the United States, possibly capable of matching any locomotive in the world. The fleet covered their 431 miles (694 kilometres) schedule in 400 minutes with several stops en route, at an average speed of more than 100 miles per hour (160 kilometres per hour) on some sections and often arriving with one or two minutes to spare.[16]
In addition, due to the locomotive being designed to operate at higher speeds, the Milwaukee Road’s Atlantics were fitted with Leslie type A-125 air horns instead of the standard steam whistle.
All four locomotives were withdrawn and scrapped between 1949 and 1951.[17]
Several 4-4-2 locomotives were preserved in the United States. Bearing in mind that this information may become outdated over time, some known examples are:
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