What was the first 2-8-4 steam locomotive?
2-8-4
The first American 2-8-4s were built for the Boston and Albany Railroad in 1925 by Lima Locomotive Works. The railroad's route across the Berkshire mountains was a substantial test for the new locomotives and, as a result, the name "Berkshire" was adopted for the locomotive type.
2-8-8-2
As of 2008, there are two surviving 2-8-8-2 locomotives, both former Norfolk & Western. N&W 2050 is from the railroad's Y3a class; Alco's Richmond works built it in 1923 and it is displayed at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois. N&W 2156 is from the railroad's Y6a class; N&W's own Roanoke Shops built it in 1942 and it displayed at the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, Virginia where it will be until 2020.
Baldwin Locomotive Works
Baldwin built many 4-4-0 "American" type locomotives (the locomotive that built America). Surviving examples of which include the 1872 "Countess of Dufferin" and 1875's Virginia and Truckee Railroad No.22 "Inyo", but it was perhaps best known for the 2-8-2 "Mikado" and 2-8-0 "Consolidation" types. It was also well known for the unique cab-forward 4-8-8-2 articulateds built for the Southern Pacific Company and massive 2-10-2 for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Baldwin also produced their most powerful steam engines in history, the 2-8-8-4 "Yellowstone" for the Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway. The Yellowstone could put down over of Tractive force. They routinely hauled 180 car trains weighing over . The Yellowstones were so good that the DM&IR refused to part with them; they hauled ore trains well into the diesel era, and the last one retired in 1963. Three have been preserved. One of Baldwin's last new and improved locomotive designs were the 4-8-4 "Northern" locomotives. Baldwin's last domestic steam locomotives were 2-6-6-2s built for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1949. Baldwin 60000, the company's 1926 demonstration steam locomotive, is on display at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. On a separate note, the restored and running 2-6-2 steam locomotive at Fort Edmonton Park was built by Baldwin in 1919.
4-8-2
The first of eighteen X class De Glehn compound locomotives, designed by A. L. Beattie, the Chief Mechanical Engineer of the New Zealand Railways Department (NZR) between 1900 and 1913, was built by the NZR's Addington Railway Workshops in Christchurch in 1908. The first locomotive in the world to be designed and built as a tender locomotive, it was designed to haul heavy freight trains on the newly completed mountainous central section of the North Island Main Trunk Railway. One member of the pioneering X class survives and is currently located at the depot of the Feilding and District Steam Rail Society.
2-8-4
In 1951, Mexico’s "Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México" (N de M) bought five 2-8-4 locomotives, built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1940, from Norfolk Southern Railway in the United States of America (USA), where they had become redundant due to dieselisation. Before their arrival in Mexico, all five went through a complete major overhaul in the USA. They arrived in Mexico late in 1951 and were allocated N de M numbers 3350 to 3354. Remaining in service until the late 1960s, they became the last USA-built Berkshires in the world to remain in revenue-earning common carrier service.
2-8-8-0
In the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives by wheel arrangement, a 2-8-8-0 is a locomotive with a two-wheel leading truck, two sets of eight driving wheels, and no trailing truck.
Chesapeake and Ohio class K-4
During the years in the 1940s, just as the C&O K-4's were being built to haul heavy freight services, C&O Class K-4s were one of the few recognizable 2-8-4 (Berkshires) classes in North America. Along with Pere Marquette Class N, like Pere Marquette 1223, and Pere Marquette 1225, and Nickel Plate Road Class S, like NKP 755, NKP 757, NKP 759, NKP 763, NKP 765, and NKP 779 (The last steam locomotive built by Lima Locomotive Works).The Chesapeake and Ohio class K-4 2-8-4 Kanawhas aren't the only 2-8-4 Berkshires that size. There are Pere Marquette Railway Class N's like Pere Marquette 1223, and Pere Marquette 1225 preserved. And there are the Nickel Plate Road (New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad) Class S's like Nickel Plate Road 755, Nickel Plate Road 757, Nickel Plate 759, Nickel Plate Road 763, Nickel Plate 765, Nickel Plate 779 preserved. In the entire 1940s, all the engines were used mostly for High Speed Freight and passenger Services throughout the north eastern regions of the United States and a few parts in Ontario, Canada by Pere Marquette Railway. The PM Class N's, the NKP Class S's and 20 of the C&O Class K-4's were manufactured by the Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, Ohio in 1940s. Three of these classes were the same height, same length except C&O K-4 tender which is a little longer, and they all run on coal and more. You will noticed that the Chesapeake and Ohio K-4's steam dome and sand dome are switched around from looking at the Class N's and Class S's steam and sand dome. Three of all of them are recognizable like Pere Marquette 1225, owned by the Steam Railroading Institute, Nickel Plate 765, owned by Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society, and Chesapeake and Ohio 2716 owned by Kentucky Railway Museum, Under Restoration.
2-8-4
In the mid-1930s, the Norwegian State Railways (Norges Statsbaner or NSB) ordered altogether eighteen powerful superheated four-cylinder compound 1'D2'-h4v (2-8-4) passenger locomotives for express and passenger train service on its single mainline between Oslo and Trondheim, on the northern section between Otta and Trondheim.
2-8-8-8-8-8-2
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, a 2-8-8-8-8-8-2 has two leading wheels, five sets of eight driving wheels, and two trailing wheels. Because of its length, such a locomotive must be an articulated locomotive. It is not longer than a normal articulated; the fourth and fifth sets of drivers are located under the tender.
2-6-4
The earliest known example was the South African Class 6Z, designed by Cape Government Railways (CGR) Chief Locomotive Superintendent H.M. Beatty in 1901. The first engines of the class were modified 2-6-2 Prairie locomotives which were equipped with two-axle trailing bogies. In 1902, more were placed in service, but built with the wheel arrangement. The latter were the first known tender locomotives in the world to be built with this wheel arrangement.
George Washington Whistler
Whistler's first locomotive, the Patrick, was produced for the Boston & Lowell Railroad. This locomotive and others built by the firm were initially copies of Stephenson Planet types (2-2-0s). In 1836, the first two steam locomotives known to have been equipped with whistles were built by Whistler as 2-2-0 types; the Hicksville for the Long Island Railroad and the Susquehanna for the Wilmington & Susquehanna Railroad. In 1838, Baltimore and Ohio railroad engineers Knight and Latrobe surveyed steam locomotives for their management, some of which included machines built in Whistler's Lowell shops.
Reading Company
In 1900, the Reading Shops began construction along the Reading yards and North 6th Street, facilitating the maintenance and construction of a greater locomotive and rolling stock fleet. The shops were completed four years later, with their imposing brick architecture, they were the largest railroad shops in America, and unlike most railroads, allowed the Reading to make its own engines. They still stand today in non RR use. Larger steam locomotives were introduced to haul the increasing traffic, including the massive N1 class 2-8-8-2 (Chesapeake) Mallet, and Reading made one M1 class 2-8-2 freight hauler, Baldwin Locomotive Works built the rest. Big freight haulers were the massive K-1 2-10-2 locomotives, some were built in Reading, Pennsylvania from the Mallets, others were built by Baldwin. The G1 class 4-6-2 were passenger locomotives. These classes were an important break of tradition of the Readings motive power fleet. The M1s were the first Reading locomotives to include a trailing truck, and the first engine with the cab behind the Wootten firebox. Engines with the name "lessor" in its title meant some steam power was owned by a second party and leased to the P&R. The G1s were the first Reading passenger locomotives with three coupled driving wheels. In 1945–47 the company took 30 class I-10 2-8-0 locomotives and rebuilt them at the 6th Street facility into the modern T1 class 4-8-4 locomotives at a cost of 6 million dollars. This was a move to offset the fact that EMD FT diesel locomotives (first choice of Reading management) were very hard to obtain, and in order to have faster, up to date modern power. The steamers never ran long enough to pay back this major investment, and had some major problems, but it did keep men employed. The Reading built or bought numerous smaller 4-4-0s, 2-8-0s and switchers for its fleet.
B. Hick and Sons
The company's first steam locomotive "Soho", named after the works was a 0-4-2 goods type, built in 1833 for carrier John Hargreaves. In 1834 an unconventional, gear-driven four-wheeled rail carriage was conceived for Bolton solicitor and banker, Thomas Lever Rushton (1810–1883). The engine was the first 3-cylinder locomotive and its design incorporated aerodynamic turned iron wheel rims with plate discs as an alternative to conventional spokes. The 3-cylinder concept evolved into Hick's experimental horizontal boiler A 2-2-2 locomotive about 1840, adopting the principle features of the vertical boiler engine. The A 2-2-2 design appears not to have been put into production.
Union Pacific FEF Series
Except for the use of some substitute materials, the final batch of ten were nearly identical to the FEF-2. After World War II, coal supplies were affected by a series of strikes. In order to safeguard operations, UP converted the 800s to oil burning, and a tank was fitted in the bunker space. Otherwise, few modifications were needed to insure years of mainline service. These were the last steam locomotives delivered for the UP. 844, the last of the FEF-3 class, is the longest continuously operating 4-8-4 engine in the world, and the only one never retired by a Class I railroad. Like many of the "late era" steam locomotives, their final design was cut short by the advent of new monarchs of the rails, diesels. "Although it is stated that the UP FEF series were designed to safely operate at , no one really knows how fast the final 4-8-4 could go" (Steve A. Lee, Manager of Union Pacific Steam Program)(835-844).
Bristol and Exeter Railway 4-2-4T locomotives
No. 29 was the first locomotive built at the Bristol and Exeter Railway's new Bristol workshops in 1859. It had slightly larger cylinders and a wheelbase. When withdrawn in 1885 it was the end of Pearson's 4-2-4Ts.
Sentetsu Mikashi-class locomotive
The Mikashi-class (ミカシ) locomotives were a group of steam tender locomotives of the Chosen Government Railway ("Sentetsu") with 2-8-2 wheel arrangement. The "Mika" name came from the American naming system for steam locomotives, under which locomotives with 2-8-2 wheel arrangement were called "Mikado" in honour of the Emperor of Japan, as the first 2-8-2 locomotives in the world were built for Japan.
2-8-4
Two prototypes were built in two-cylinder and three-cylinder versions. When tested, the two-cylinder version proved to be superior to the three-cylinder Class 114 version, and eventually twelve more two-cylinder Class 214 locomotives were built. In 1936, no. 214.13 reached a speed of , the highest speed ever attained by an Austrian steam locomotive. The regular speed limit was .
From 1938, the Deutsche Reichsbahn (DRB) designated the locomotives class 12.0. In the summer of 1939, they hauled 600 tons express trains out of Vienna over Wienerwald at a speed of , reaching over level stretches.
2-6-8-0
This type of articulated locomotive is unusual in having different numbers of driving axles in each set, and was only found in the United States of America. The Great Northern Railway and the Alabama Great Southern, a predecessor of the Southern Railway, both in the United States, were the sole long-term users of this type of locomotive. Great Northern received 35 from Baldwin in 1910, numbered 1950–1984, designated class M-1. The M1s were rebuilt to use simple expansion In 1926 and 1927 and were redesignated class M-2. Most of the M-2s did not last long, being converted to class O-7 2-8-2s between 1929 and 1931; the thirteen exceptions remained in service until 1949–1954. The AGS had a single example in this wheel arrangement, number 300.
0-4-0
0-4-0 locomotives were built as tank locomotives as well as tender locomotives. The former were more common in Europe and the latter in the United States, except in the tightest of situations such as that of a shop switcher, where overall length was a concern. The earliest 0-4-0 locomotives were tender engines and appeared as early as c. 1802. The 0-4-0 tank engines were introduced in the early 1850s. The type was found to be so useful in many locations that they continued to be built for more than a century and existed until the end of the steam era.
Richard Trevithick's "Coalbrookedale" (1802), "Pen-y-Darren" (1804) and "Newcastle" (1805) locomotives were of the 0-4-0 type, although in their cases the wheels were connected by a single gear wheel. The first 0-4-0 to use coupling rods was Locomotion No. 1, built by Robert Stephenson and Company for the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825. Stephenson also built the Lancashire Witch in 1828, and Timothy Hackworth built Sans Pareil which ran at the Rainhill Trials in 1829. The latter two locomotives later worked on the Bolton and Leigh Railway.
Triplex (locomotive)
Baldwin Locomotive Works built three 2-8-8-8-2 locomotives for the Erie Railroad between 1914 and 1916. Numbers #5014–5016. One, #5014, was named "Matt H. Shay". These engines rarely made a maximum speed of 10 miles per hour. The Erie Railroad scrapped their Triplexes from 1929, 1931, and 1933. One 2-8-8-8-4 was also built, for the Virginian Railway as # 700 in 1916. This was class XA, so named due to the experimental nature of the locomotive. The 2-8-8-8-4 was highly unsuccessful because of only making a maximum speed of 3–5 miles per hour and high maintenance costs. The firebox was almost the same size as the small boiler! The XA was sent back to Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1920 to be converted to a 2-8-8-0 and a 2-8-2. These two engines were up in service until 1953. None of the two engines were preserved.
2-8-8-4
Fleet numbers 7600–7619 were built and delivered in 1944 and 7620–7629 in 1945, all by the Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They went to work on the Cumberland Division's rugged West End subdivision with its more than 2% grades and tight curves, where with the older 2-8-8-0 EL classes, they hauled West Virginia coal and freights. Since the EM-1s had roller bearings throughout, they also handled mail and express trains, replacing two B&O class T-3 4-8-2 Mountains. That continued until January 21, 1947, when near Oakland, Maryland, train 29 with engine 7625 derailed with the locomotive rolling onto the engineer's side, killing the engineer. The EM-1s were then restricted to coal and freight trains until the late 1950s, when the B&O used EM-1 No. 7600 for railfan trips.
Steam locomotive
In the 1920s, the focus in the United States turned to horsepower, epitomised by the "super power" concept promoted by the Lima Locomotive Works, although tractive effort was still the prime consideration after World War I to the end of steam. Goods trains were designed to run faster, while passenger locomotives needed to pull heavier loads at speed. This was achieved by increasing the size of grate and firebox without changes to the rest of the locomotive, requiring the addition of a second axle to the trailing truck. Freight 2-8-2s became 2-8-4s while 2-10-2s became 2-10-4s. Similarly, passenger 4-6-2s became 4-6-4s. In the United States this led to a convergence on the dual-purpose 4-8-4 and the 4-6-6-4 articulated configuration, which was used for both freight and passenger service. Mallet locomotives went through a similar transformation, evolving from bank engines into huge mainline locomotives with much larger fireboxes; their driving wheels were also increased in size in order to allow faster running.
2-8-4
The first Czechoslovakian 1’D2’t-h2 (2-8-4) tank locomotive was derived from the CSD Class 455.1 1’D-h2 (2-8-0) tender locomotive, with water tanks, a coal bunker and a trailing bogie added. Apart from changing the drive from the second to the third coupled axle and increasing the superheating surface of the boiler, these handsome tank locomotives were mechanically identical to the tender locomotives. They were originally intended to be used on the Prague to České Budějovice (Böhmisch Budweis) line and on branch lines diverting from the mainline for local train service. At the time, however, the 16 ton axle load proved to be too high for most of the lines where they were intended to run and for this reason only 27 locomotives were built between 1928 and 1932.
2-8-4
The heavy Class 214 1′’D2′ (2-8-4) two-cylinder simple expansion express passenger locomotive was developed in Austria in 1927. It was designed by engineers of the Floridsdorf Werke and was the largest Austrian steam locomotive and the most powerful Berkshire type to run in Europe. Designed for the West railway express train service, they were to be used to haul 580 tons express trains from Wien Westbahnhof in Vienna over to Salzburg. This mainline has three approximately banks with gradients between 1 in 91 and 1 in 125.
2-8-4
Designed under the direction of engineer André Chapelon, this class demonstrated that large and powerful steam locomotives could run in general use on light rails of with low speed limits. Their maximum axle load had been reduced to 10 tons, all were fitted with double Kylchap exhaust systems and their leading and trailing trucks had Athermos axle boxes. Three tender types could be coupled to them, one heavy and two light, for work in different areas.
4-10-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-10-0 represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels, ten powered and coupled driving wheels, and no trailing wheels. Central Pacific Railroad's "El Gobernador", built in 1883, was the only locomotive with this wheel arrangement to operate in the United States. The name "Mastodon" has also been applied to this type, though this nickname has also been used for the 4-8-0 arrangement (Mastodon was the unofficial nickname of the Central Pacific's No. 229, the first 4-8-0 ever built), leading to some confusion. Later, these locomotives were named "Super Mastodon's."
Lima Locomotive Works
The construction of the first 2-8-4 locomotive is documented in David Weitzman's book, Superpower: Making of a steam locomotive. David also explains some of the innovations it made at the time.
2-8-8-8-4
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, a 2-8-8-8-4 has two leading wheels, three sets of eight driving wheels, and four trailing wheels.
James Cudworth
In 1861, Cudworth introduced a class of 2-2-2 express passenger locomotives with diameter driving wheels. These engines gave over 20 years service on the boat trains serving Folkestone and Dover, finally being replaced in 1884 by Stirling's F class 4-4-0s. Cudworth was also responsible for the introduction of the 0-4-4T wheel arrangement for steam locomotives to English railways, with his 235 class of 1866.
2-6-2
In the United States, the type evolved from the 2-6-0 configuration. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (AT&SF) became a pioneer of the type in the United States in 1901 and one of the largest fleet users of the type. Problems the road encountered with the type included steam leakage in the compound cylinder plumbing and instability at speed. The former problem was solved by converting them to simplex two-cylinder locomotives; the latter problem required new Pacific types with four-wheeled guide trucks. The Prairie types were rebuilt with smaller drivers for slightly slower fast freight service. These engines tended to enjoy very long service lives, and outlasted many a newer, more efficient steam locomotive on the Santa Fe and elsewhere. This was due to their modest weight, good speed and ability to operate well in reverse, which made them valuable for branch line operations.
In 1902, the AT&SF had a 2-6-2 with a high, at the time, boiler pressure of , mounted on a large fire grate.
2-8-0
The first locomotive of this wheel arrangement was possibly built by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR). Like the first 2-6-0s, this first 2-8-0 had a leading axle that was rigidly attached to the locomotive's frame, rather than on a separate truck or bogie. To create this 2-8-0, PRR master mechanic John P. Laird modified an existing 0-8-0, the "Bedford", between 1864 and 1865.
2-6-4
The first British examples of the 2-6-4T wheel arrangement were two locomotives built for the narrow-gauge Leek & Manifold Valley Light Railway in 1904. The first examples were the class 1B of the Great Central Railway, built in 1914.
2-2-2
Sharp, Roberts and Company constructed more than 600 2-2-2 locomotives between 1837 and 1857. Ten of these supplied to the Grand Junction Railway became the basis of Alexander Allan's successful designs for the railway from 1845 (the first of which, formerly named "Columbine", is preserved). J. & G. Rennie supplied 2-2-2 locomotives to the London and Croydon Railway from 1838 and the London and Brighton Railway in 1840. Arend ("eagle") was one of the two first steam locomotives in the Netherlands, built by R. B. Longridge and Company of Bedlington, Northumberland in 1839.
Strathpeffer railway station
The first locomotive, "Strathpeffer", was a 2-2-2 and was underpowered even for the easy gradients of the branch. In 1890 the Highland Railway locomotive engineer David Jones designed an 0-4-4 saddle tank design; the new "Strathpeffer" was given a second-hand boiler from another 2-2-2, and in 1901 it was altered to a side-tank configuration. In 1903 it was transferred to work the Wick and Lybster Light Railway. That engine was replaced by a third "Strathpeffer", a similar 0-4-4 tank design built at Inverness.
2-8-4
The Western Australian K-class was a class of 2-8-4T steam locomotives of the Western Australian Government Railways (WAGR). Between 1893 and 1898, the WAGR took delivery of 24 of these locomotives from Neilson and Company. They entered service on the Eastern Railway between Midland Junction and Northam. In 1900, during the Second Boer War, the Imperial Military Railways experienced a shortage of locomotives and six more new K class locomotives destined for the WAGR were diverted to South Africa, where they were known as the "Western Australians".
South African Class 24 2-8-4
By the late 1940s, the South African Railways (SAR) still had a comparatively large mileage of track. In South West Africa, where most of the locomotive fleet consisted of Classes 6, 7, GC and GCA, there were still hundreds of miles of track. Considering the increasing age of these locomotives, the options were either to relay these tracks with rail or to obtain new light branch line locomotives suitable for use on the existing track.
The Class 24 2-8-4 Berkshire type branch line steam locomotive was designed by Dr. M.M. Loubser, Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) of the SAR from 1939 to 1949. The locomotives were built by North British Locomotive Company (NBL) of Glasgow, who delivered one hundred of them in 1949 and 1950, numbered in the range from 3601 to 3700. The cast engine main frames and the Buckeye bogies for the tenders were supplied by General Steel Castings of Eddystone, Pennsylvania.
4-2-4T
The first eight known 4-2-4 locomotives entered service on the broad gauge Bristol and Exeter Railway in 1853 and 1854, numbered in the range from 39 to 46. They had diameter flangeless driving wheels, supported by leading and trailing two-axle bogies. The water was carried in both well- and back-tanks. Two more engines were built in 1859 and 1862, but with much smaller diameter driving wheels.
Between 1869 and 1873, new locomotives were built to replace four of the original diameter driving wheeled engines, re-using the engine numbers of the locomotives being replaced. These four replacement engines had slightly smaller diameter driving wheels.
2-8-2
The 2-8-2 saw great success in the United States, mostly as a freight locomotive. In the 1910s it largely replaced the 2-8-0 Consolidation as the main heavy freight locomotive type. Its tractive effort was similar to that of the best 2-8-0s, but a developing requirement for higher speed freight trains drove the shift to the 2-8-2 wheel arrangement.
The Mikado type was, in turn, ousted from the top-flight trains by larger freight locomotive wheel arrangements such as the 2-8-4, 2-10-2, 2-10-4 and articulated locomotives, but no successor type became ubiquitous and the Mike remained the most common road freight locomotive with most railroads until the end of steam. More than 14,000 were built in the United States, about 9500 of these for North American service, constituting about one-fifth of all locomotives in service there at the time. The heaviest Mikados were the Great Northern’s class O-8, with an axle load of .
2-4-0
Joseph Beattie of the London and South Western Railway was one of the first British locomotive engineers to use this type on express locomotives. From 1858, he began experimenting with 2-4-0 designs for passenger work, culminating in his "Seven-Foot" express passenger locomotives, built between 1859 and 1868. Beattie was also responsible for the long-lived 0298 Class of 2-4-0 well tanks, designed for suburban passenger work in 1874, some examples of which were still working in 1961. A locomotive of this type hauled the first "Orient Express" from Paris to Munich, a notable achievement for such a small engine.
2-8-4
Under the Whyte notation, a 2-8-4 is a steam locomotive that has one unpowered leading axle, usually in a leading truck, followed by four powered and coupled driving axles, and two unpowered trailing axles, usually mounted in a bogie. This locomotive type is most often referred to as a Berkshire, though the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway used the name Kanawha for their 2-8-4s. In Europe, this wheel arrangement was mostly seen in mainline passenger express locomotives and, in certain countries, in tank locomotives.
In the United States of America, the 2-8-4 wheel arrangement was a further development of the enormously successful United States Railroad Administration (USRA) 2-8-2 Mikado. It resulted from the requirement for a locomotive with even greater steam heating capacity. To produce more steam, a solution was to increase the size of the locomotive's firebox, but the 2-8-2 wheel arrangement with its single axle trailing truck limited the permissible increased axle loading from a larger firebox. The most practical solution was to add a second trailing axle to spread the increased weight of a larger firebox.
4-6-4
The four-cylinder compound locomotive designed by Gaston du Bousquet for the French Chemin de Fer du Nord, of which two (3.1101 and 3.1102) were built at the company's workshops in 1911, was the first tender locomotive in the world with this wheel arrangement. Named the "Baltic" since it was intended for service on the Paris-Saint Petersburg express, its most remarkable feature was the "en echelon" arrangement of the two low-pressure inside cylinders in order to accommodate the very large bore. One of them was built with a water-tube firebox. Although they were not multiplied, they were the forerunners of the highly successful Nord Pacifics and Super-Pacifics. One survives in the "Musée français du chemin de fer" (French national railway museum) at Mulhouse in eastern France, cut up in sectioned form to display its interior during the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937. Its tender was not preserved.
France also produced some of the last Baltic locomotives. In 1938, Marc de Caso, the last Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Nord, originated the construction of eight Baltic locomotives, all delivered to the newly established "Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français" (French National Railway Corporation or SNCF). Of these eight, three were 232.R class three-cylinder simple expansion (simplex) locomotives with rotary cam poppet valve gear, while four were 232.S class four-cylinder compound locomotives, initially also with poppet valve gear that was later replaced by Walschaerts valve gear driving oscillating cams. Built for comparative purposes, it was found that the compounds outperformed the simples.
Northern Pacific Railway
Presidents of Northern Pacific Railway were:
The Northern Pacific was known for many firsts in locomotive history and was a leader in the development of modern steam locomotives. The NP was one of the first railroads to use Mikado 2-8-2 locomotives in the United States and the first to use the 4-8-4 "Northern" type.
2-8-8-4
Soviet Russia constructed two 2-8-8-4 locomotives at the Kolomna Locomotive Works. These were the P38 Class numbers P38.001 and P38.002. The first locomotive carried partial casings over the boiler and smokebox typical of the 1950s. P38.002 bore no such adornments and had a more conventional appearance. Both engines had tenders with part bogie and part fixed frame similar to the American 'centipede' tenders.
Norris Locomotive Works
Norris built the "Lafayette" for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad the following year based on plans of the "George Washington". Named after the Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette, this new 4-2-0 engine was the B&O's first locomotive to feature a leading truck and may have been the first standardized production model locomotive in the entire world. Innovations included positioning of cylinders outside and adjacent to the smokebox with pistons connecting to the face of the drive wheels instead of a crank axle, the four-wheel swiveling pilot truck, inside bar frame support, and placement of the two drivers ahead of the firebox (this supposedly offered greater power output as more of the locomotive's weight rested on the drivers and therefore increased tractive effort). The "Lafayette" established the configuration that American steam locomotives would follow until the end of the steam era.
In 1847, the Norris Works built the first ten-wheel locomotive in America: the "Chesapeake". Operated by the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, this was also the world's first 4-6-0 locomotive. It weighed 22 tons and had 14½ by 22 inch cylinders and driving wheels 46 inches in diameter. Initially a wood-burning locomotive, the "Chesapeake" was converted to burn anthracite coal in 1862, and ran for about another fifteen years. Some authorities claim that Septimus Norris came up with the design, but other sources attribute it to master builder John Brandt of the Erie Railway.
2-8-0
Five 2-8-0 locomotive classes saw service in South Africa, all of them initially acquired by the Cape Government Railways (CGR), which classified all but two as 8th Class. All of them were variations on the same design, used saturated steam, and had cylinders with overhead slide valves, actuated by inside Stephenson valve gear.
4-8-4
The K class was designed by R.J. Gard to the requirements of Locomotive Superintendent P.R. Angus and was built locally at the Hutt Workshops of the NZR. The first locomotives were delivered during the depths of the Great Depression in 1932. The grate and comparatively large boiler was slung low on a narrow frame to keep within the height restrictions, and width restrictions were adhered to with sloped cab sides and the mounting of two single stage air compressors in front of the smokebox.
After the construction of thirty K class locomotives, the NZR developed the design to strengthen the frame and introduced other improvements, such as roller bearings on all axles and ACFI ("Accessoires pour les Chemins de Fer et l'Industrie") feedwater heaters. Introduced from 1939, they were also built in NZR workshops, most of them with streamlined shrouding to cover the external pipe work of their feedwater heater systems. The first 35 locomotives were designated K class and worked on the North Island mainlines with the older K class locomotives.
South African Class 8 4-8-0
The first batch of three locomotives, numbered in the range from 801 to 803, went to the CGR's Western System in 1902. They were delivered with Type XD tenders which had a coal capacity of and a water capacity of .
Nickel Plate 779
Nickel Plate Road 779 is a 2-8-4 or "Berkshire" type steam locomotive built for the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad in May 1949, for use on fast freight trains. It was the last new steam locomotive to be delivered to the Nickel Plate Road, the last steam locomotive ever manufactured by Lima Locomotive Works, and the final 2-8-4 locomotive on standard gauge built in the world.
4-8-2
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels, eight powered and coupled driving wheels and two trailing wheels. This type of steam locomotive is commonly known as the Mountain type.
The tank and tender locomotive versions of the Mountain wheel arrangement both originated in the Colony of Natal in South Africa.
In 1888, the Natal Government Railways (NGR) placed the first five of its eventual one hundred Class D tank locomotives in service. The locomotive was designed by William Milne, the locomotive superintendent of the NGR from 1877 to 1896, and was built by Dübs and Company. This was the first known use of the wheel arrangement in the world.
In 1906, six NGR Class B Mastodon locomotives, designed by D.A. Hendrie, NGR Locomotive Superintendent from 1903 to 1910, were modified to a wheel arrangement by having trailing bissel trucks added below their cabs to improve their stability when hauling fast passenger trains. These altered Class B locomotives were the first tender locomotives in the world.
4-8-2
The was most popular on the North American continent. When the 4-6-2 Pacific fleets were becoming over-burdened as passenger trains grew in length and weight, the first North American locomotives were built by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) in 1911. It is possible that the "Mountain" name was originated by C&O, after the Allegheny Mountains where their first locomotives were built to work. ALCO combined the traction of the eight-coupled 2-8-2 Mikado with the excellent tracking qualities of the Pacific's four-wheel leading truck. Although C&O intended their new Mountains for passenger service, the type also proved ideal for the new, faster freight services that railroads in the United States were introducing. Many locomotives were therefore built for dual service.
South African Class 8F 4-8-0
The first 8th Class locomotive of the Cape Government Railways (CGR) was a Consolidation type designed by H.M. Beatty, the CGR’s Chief Locomotive Superintendent from 1896 to 1910. It was later to become the Class 8X on the South African Railways (SAR). While these first Schenectady- and ALCO-built locomotives were being subjected to exhaustive testing on all types of traffic and under varying conditions, some trouble was experienced with the leading two-wheeled pony truck. When designs were prepared at Salt River for a later order for more locomotives, the pony truck was replaced with a four-wheeled bogie.
4-2-4T
The configuration was most often used for tank engines, which is noted by adding letter suffixes to the configuration, such as for a conventional side-tank locomotive, for a saddle-tank locomotive, for a well-tank locomotive and for a rack-equipped tank locomotive.
This wheel arrangement was mainly used on various tank locomotive configurations. Eight 4-2-4 well- and back-tank locomotives which entered service on the Bristol and Exeter Railway in 1853 appear to have been the first with this wheel arrangement. The engine was designed by James Pearson, the railway company's engineer, and featured single large flangeless driving wheels between two supporting four-wheeled bogies. The water was carried in both well- and back-tanks, leaving the boilers exposed in the same way as on most tender locomotives.
4-8-4
Outside North America, the largest fleet of locomotives was the Class P36 of the "Sovetskie Zheleznye Dorogi" (SZhD) or Soviet Railways), of which 251 were built by the Kolomna locomotive works between 1949 and 1956. As the last Soviet standard class steam locomotive, the Class P36 shared some common components and design attributes with earlier standard Soviet designs such as the L class Decapod type and LV class Santa Fe type, as well as some common attributes with the P34 class  Mallet and P38 class Yellowstone type Mallet. For example, the P36 and LV classes shared the same feedwater heater, made by the Bryansk machine factory. Apart from a trio of fully streamlined Baltic type locomotives, they were the only semi-streamlined steam locomotives built in Russia. 
The Class P36 was one of the best passenger steam locomotive classes built in the Soviet Union. They had boilers with of heating surface that had a working boiler pressure of . Russian-designed roller bearings were fitted throughout and the boilers were designed to provide a continuous steaming capacity of per of heating surface in the boiler. With its cylinders and diameter coupled wheels, it could easily attain speeds up to with passenger trains of up to .
Lima Locomotive Works
There were at least three successive waves of "Super Power". The first began with NYC 8000 and the A-1, and included Missouri Pacific 2-8-4s and Texas & Pacific 2-10-4s. These locomotives had conventional 63" driving wheels. In 1927, the Erie Railroad took delivery of a "second-phase" Berkshire with 70" driving wheels, capable not only of great power but higher speed; in turn, this design evolved into the Chesapeake & Ohio T-1 2-10-4s of 1930, with 69" driving wheels. The "third-phase" of the later 1930s and war years can be identified with locomotives such as the homebuilt N&W 2-6-6-4s, C&O/Virginian 2-6-6-6 and virtually all American 4-8-4s. Boiler pressures rose as high as 310 lbs/sq.in.; thermic syphons added to the firebox and combustion chamber added 8% to the efficiency of the boiler; roller bearings appeared on main axle boxes and sometimes on running gear. And the "Super Power" concept had extended to other builders such as Alco (the Union Pacific Big Boy) and Baldwin (the Santa Fe 5001- and 5011-class 2-10-4s). The four-wheel trailing truck became the standard for large locomotives (i.e. 4-8-4, 2-10-4, 4-6-6-4, 2-8-8-4), though the articulated main frame did not. Many railroads, particularly roads like the Santa Fe (which favored oil burning locomotives and, therefore, did not need the oversized ash pan), adopted many of the Super Power features but utilized a conventional full frame and separate trailing truck.
New York Central Niagara
The first New York Central Railroad Northern (or 4-8-4) was ordered in 1931: #800, an experimental locomotive that had its boiler divided into three sections of different pressure. This was another failed experiment in high pressure steam locomotives.
2-2-0
After early experience with the 0-2-2 configuration on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, Robert Stephenson decided to build a locomotive with cylinders inside the frames, for which a 2-2-0 was preferable.
The first such locomotive was "Planet", built in 1830 and the company went on to build a further eighteen examples for the railway. In 1835 five examples were supplied to the London and Greenwich Railway. After 1836 Edward Bury built sixty-nine bar frame 2-2-0 locomotives for the London and Birmingham Railway. The steam roller and traction engine company Aveling and Porter built a number of 2-2-0 locomotives, some of which were convertible traction engines.
2-8-2
Only one 2-8-2 locomotive ever operated on New Zealand's national rail network, and it was not even ordered by the New Zealand Railways Department, who ran almost the entire network. The locomotive was ordered in 1901 from Baldwin Locomotive Works by the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company (WMR) for use on their main line's steep section between Wellington and Paekakariki. It entered service on 10 June 1902 as the WMR’s no. 17. At the time, it was the most powerful locomotive in New Zealand and successfully performed its intended tasks.
Santa Fe 3751
Built in 1927 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, 3751 was Baldwin's and the Santa Fe railway's first 4-8-4. It had a Santa Fe 5-chime freight whistle mounted on it. Tests showed that 3751 was 20% more efficient and powerful than the Santa Fe's 3700 class 4-8-2 steamers, which at the time were Santa Fe's most advanced steam locomotives. In 1936, the engine was converted to burn oil. Two years later, the locomotive was given a larger tender able to hold 20,000 gallons of water and 7,107 gallons of fuel oil. 3751 was also present at the grand opening of Union Station in Los Angeles on May 7, 1939 pulling the Scout, one of Santa Fe's crack passenger trains as it arrived from Chicago. It was the first steam locomotive to bring a passenger train into LAUPT. In 1941, along with other 4-8-4s, 3751 received major upgrades including: 80-inch drive wheels, a new frame, roller bearings all around, and more. That same year, it achieved its highest recorded speed at 103 mph. It continued to be a very reliable working locomotive until 1953, when it pulled the last regularly scheduled steam powered passenger train on the Santa Fe to run between Los Angeles and San Diego on August 25, this was its last run in revenue service. After that, it was stored at the Redondo Junction, California roundhouse in Los Angeles for four years before it was officially retired from the roster by the railroad in 1957, and in 1958 it was placed on display in San Bernardino.
Sentetsu Mikani-class locomotive
The Mikani-class (ミカニ) locomotives were a group of steam tender locomotives of the Chosen Government Railway ("Sentetsu") with 2-8-2 wheel arrangement. The "Mika" name came from the American naming system for steam locomotives, under which locomotives with 2-8-2 wheel arrangement were called "Mikado" in honour of the Emperor of Japan, as the first 2-8-2 locomotives in the world were built for Japan.
4-4-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives by wheel arrangement, represents the arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles, usually in a leading bogie, four powered and coupled driving wheels on two axles, and no trailing wheels. Almost every major railroad that operated in North America in the first half of the 19th century owned and operated locomotives of this type. Due to the large number of the type that were produced and used in the United States, the is most commonly known as the American type, but the type subsequently also became popular in the United Kingdom, where large numbers were produced.
The first use of the name "American" to describe locomotives of this wheel arrangement was made by "Railroad Gazette" in April 1872. Prior to that, this wheel arrangement was known as a "standard" or "eight-wheeler". This locomotive type was so successful on railroads in the United States of America that many earlier 4-2-0 and 2-4-0 locomotives were rebuilt as 4-4-0s by the middle of the 19th century.
4-4-2 (locomotive)
The tender version of the originated in the United States of America, evolving from the less stable 2-4-2 Columbia type wheel arrangement, and was built especially for mainline passenger express services. One advantage of the type over its predecessor 4-4-0 American type was that the trailing wheels allowed a larger and deeper firebox to be placed behind the driving wheels.
The first use of the wheel arrangement for a tender locomotive was under an experimental double-firebox locomotive, built to the design of George Strong at the Hinkley Locomotive Works in 1888. The locomotive was not successful and was scrapped soon afterwards. The wheel arrangement was named after the second North American tender locomotive class, built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1894 for use on the Atlantic City line of the Philadelphia and Reading Railway.
USRA 2-6-6-2
The Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad ordered the first of these compact 2-6-6-2 articulated steam locomotives from Alco in 1911. It was a massive locomotive for the time, and it performed well enough for the C&O to order additional, but slightly modified, versions right through 1923. These locomotives were designed to replace the 2-8-0 Consolidations for the coal drags on the C&O’s Hinton Division. The 2-6-6-2s could handle more tonnage than the double-headed pair of 2-8-0s they replaced, and they burned less coal in the process. The 2-6-6-2s proved to be ideal mine run engines as their power and flexibility plus low weight on drivers made them ideal for the curving and heavily graded branches in the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia.
South African Class 24 2-8-4
The South African Railways Class 24 2-8-4 of 1949 is a steam locomotive.
South African Class 8E 4-8-0
The first Cape Government Railways (CGR) 8th Class locomotive was a Consolidation type, designed by H.M. Beatty, the CGR's Chief Locomotive Superintendent from 1896 to 1910. These locomotives were later to become the South African Railways (SAR) Class 8X. While these first Schenectady- and ALCO-built locomotives were being subjected to exhaustive testing on all types of traffic and under varying conditions, some trouble was experienced with the leading two-wheeled pony truck and, when designs were prepared at Salt River for a later order for more locomotives, the pony truck was replaced with a four-wheeled bogie, which resulted in the CGR's Mastodon type 8th Class.
2-8-2
Before 1945, the Dutch East Indies Railway Administration, "Staatspoorwegen" (SS), introduced two types of locomotives with a 2-8-2 wheel arrangement, the class 1500 tender engine of 1920, later renumbered as class D51, and the class 1400 tank engine of 1921-22, later renumbered as class D14. The class 1500 was originally used on the Hedjaz Railway, but was later diverted to Java prior to the First World War.
2-8-8-4
The Southern Pacific Railroad's famous "cab-forward" articulated steam locomotives were effectively a Yellowstone in reverse, but the SP also owned some conventional 2-8-8-4s for use on its less mountainous routes. Lima Locomotive Works built 12 AC-9 class locomotives in 1939; they had skyline casings with striped pilots. At first, they burned coal but were later converted to oil. None were saved.
4-8-2+2-8-4
A Garratt was built for the gauge Soviet Railways by Beyer, Peacock and Company in 1932. This was the largest steam locomotive in Europe. It weighed 262.5 tons in working order and produced of tractive effort at 95% boiler pressure. It was built with thick bar frames, was high, and was tested in temperatures as low as .
4-8-2
The first locomotive to be designed and built as a tender locomotive was New Zealand's X class, designed by A. L. Beattie and built by the New Zealand Railways Department's Addington Workshops in Christchurch in 1908. It was designed to haul heavy freight trains on the mountainous central section of the North Island Main Trunk Railway and it is believed that this was the source of the "Mountain" name of the type, although it is also possible that the name was originated by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in the United States, who named the type after the Allegheny Mountains. The X class was, however, not considered to be a true Mountain type, since its trailing truck served to spread the axle load rather than to allow a larger and wider firebox. The trailing wheels were positioned well behind a narrow firebox, which itself sat above the coupled wheels, necessitating the same design compromise between coupled wheel diameter and grate size as on a  Consolidation or Mastodon. A true design was a progression of the classic 4-6-2 Pacific layout, which featured a wide firebox positioned above the trailing truck and behind the coupled wheels, allowing for a wide and deep firebox as well as large coupled wheels.
2-2-0
The first Russian-built steam locomotive was a 2-2-0 built by the Cherepanovs (father and son) in 1833-1834.
Steam locomotive
Steam locomotives were first developed in Great Britain during the early 19th century and used for railway transport until the middle of the 20th century. The first steam locomotive, made by Richard Trevithick, first operated on 21 February 1804, three years after the road locomotive he made in 1801. The first commercially successful steam locomotive was created in 1812–13 by John Blenkinsop. Built by George Stephenson and his son Robert's company Robert Stephenson and Company, the "Locomotion" No. 1 is the first steam locomotive to carry passengers on a public rail line, the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825. George also built the first public inter-city railway line in the world to use locomotives, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which opened in 1830. Stephenson established his company as the pre-eminent builder of steam locomotives for railways in the United Kingdom, the United States, and much of Europe.
4-6-2
The first one was bought from "Forges, Usines et Fonderies de Haine-Saint-Pierre" in Belgium in 1923. This locomotive had been ordered by the Spanish railway "Ferrocarril Madrid-Aragon" in 1914, prior to the outbreak of the First World War, but it was never delivered for reasons unknown. The locomotive used saturated steam and had diameter coupled wheels, which made it well suited to run the between Addis Abeba and Dire Dawa in Ethiopia. (Also see )
2-8-4
In 1904, the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company (WMR) ordered a 2-8-4 tank locomotive from Baldwin Locomotive Works for banking duties on the 2½% (1 in 40) gradients from Wellington to Ngaio. The locomotive, no. 3, was nicknamed "Jumbo". When the New Zealand Government purchased the WMR, no. 3 was renumbered to NZR Wj class no. 466 by the New Zealand Government Railways. It was the only locomotive in the class.
2-8-4
From the mid-1930s until their replacement by diesel locomotives, the 2-8-4 (1’D2’-h2) wheel arrangement was relatively common in the former Soviet Union. When built, these locomotives were designated Class IS, for Iosif Stalin. The Class IS locomotive was a passenger derivative of the Class FD 1’E1’-h2 (2-10-2) freight locomotive and had many parts in common with the Class FD.
4-2-2
The first 4-2-2 to have a bogie was built by Archibald Sturrock of the Great Northern Railway (GNR) in 1853. This had flangeless driving wheels, and was only moderately successful, having a tendency to derail. By the 1870s, improved design of bogies giving more flexibility enabled designers to create fast standard gauge express passenger locomotives of this type. On the GNR, Patrick Stirling built 53 examples with outside cylinders at Doncaster railway works between 1870 and 1895, for use on the main line between London and York. They ran at an average speed of more than 60 mph during the race to the north, and were called "eight-footers" because of the driving wheel, that was more than 8 ft. in diameter. Stirling's successor Henry Ivatt built a further twelve singles between 1898-1901 before moving on to larger 4-4-2 designs.
DR 18 201
The new locomotive was given its number to commemorate the first German locomotive with a 4-6-2 ('Pacific') wheel arrangement, the Baden IV f of the Baden State Railways (later the DRG Class 18.2).
In 1967 number 18 201 was converted to oil-firing. After the changeover to computerised numbers the engine was given the number 02 0201-0. On 11 October 1972 during a trial run it attained a top speed of 182.4 km/h or 113.3 mph. As a result, it is the fastest, operational steam locomotive in the world, and also holds the world record for the biggest driving wheels (2.30 m in diameter) ever to be fitted to an engine with a 4-6-2 wheel arrangement.
Bristol and Exeter Railway 4-2-4T locomotives
The three types are distinguished by the size of driving wheel; the early wheels being replaced by smaller ones on later designs.The first of Pearson's 4-2-4Ts were eight locomotives built by Rothwell and Company in 1853 and 1854 and were all withdrawn by 1873.
American Locomotive Company
Though the dual-service 4-8-4 steam locomotive had shown great promise, 1948 was the last year that steam locomotives were manufactured in Schenectady. These were the seven A-2a class 9400-series Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad 2-8-4 "Berkshires." Their tenders had to be subcontracted to Lima Locomotive Works, as Alco's tender shop had been closed. The building was converted to diesel locomotive manufacture, to compete with locomotives manufactured by the automobile industry.
2-8-4
The CSD ordered three Class 486.1 1’D2’-h3 (2-8-4) locomotives, based on the three-cylinder Class 114 locomotive of the Austrian Federal Railways (BBÖ). This hand-fired locomotive had a Krauss-Helmholtz leading truck and the diameter of its coupled wheels was . Its total weight in working order was 107.6 tons, of which 63.9 tons were adhesive weight. All three cylinders were of bore with a stroke. The heating surface of the boiler was , of which were superheating area. The grate area was and the locomotive was designed for possible coal dust firing. They had Class 926.0 tenders, which were rebuilt from Class 623.0 tenders.
4-8-0
In France, the wheel arrangement was used on two locomotive classes. The first was in 1907 by the "Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée" (PLM). These locomotives were intended for goods trains, as well as passenger trains on the more difficult routes. They were Baudry type compound locomotives, similar to the De Glehn type, but with their low pressure cylinders set at 60% cut-off. All of them originally used saturated steam, but some were later equipped with superheaters while all the others were provided with feedwater heaters. These locomotives had a maximum speed limit of and were designed to be able to haul 1,177 long tons at . A total of 282 were built. The PLM had prepared designs for another much larger locomotive by 1913, but it did not materialise as a result of the outbreak of the First World War.
The second locomotive to appear in France was the famous 240P class of the "Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français" (SNCF), with "240" in this instance referring to the French classification of wheel arrangement according to the number and arrangement of axles rather than wheels. Technically, these locomotives were developments of some of the earliest Pacific locomotives in Europe that were built for the "Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans" (PO). The 240P class was considered to be one of André Chapelon's finest designs and benefited from his thorough understanding of thermodynamics and his appreciation of the need to consider the entirety of the steam circuit. The locomotive was a four-cylinder compound, fitted with Lentz-Dabeg poppet valves.
2-6-6-6
The 2-6-6-6 (in Whyte notation) is an articulated locomotive type with 2 leading wheels, two sets of six driving wheels and six trailing wheels. Only two classes of the 2-6-6-6 type were built. One was the "Allegheny" class, built by the Lima Locomotive Works. The name comes from the locomotive's first service with the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway beginning in 1941. The other was the "Blue Ridge" class for the Virginian Railway. These were one of the most powerful reciprocating steam locomotives ever built at 7,500 HP (which was only exceeded by the PRR Q2), and one of the heaviest at 386 tons for the locomotive itself plus 215 tons for the loaded tender.
2-8-8-4
The metre gauge Central Railway of Brazil took delivery of four 2-8-8-4s from the German firm of Henschel in 1937. They were the only narrow gauge locomotives of this wheel arrangement. They had the largest boilers ever used on a narrow-gauge Mallet.
Wagonway
In 1804, Richard Trevithick, in the first recorded use of steam power on a railway, ran a high-pressure steam locomotive with smooth wheels on an 'L' section plateway near Merthyr Tydfil, but it was more expensive than horses. He made three trips from the iron mines at Penydarren to the Merthyr-Cardiff Canal and each time broke the rails that were designed for horse wagon loads. There was general doubt at the time that smooth wheels could obtain traction on smooth rails. This resulted in proposals using rack or other drive mechanisms.
Mr Blenkinsop of Middleton Colliery patented the use of cogged wheels in 1811 and in 1812, the Middleton Railway (edgeway, rack rail) successfully used twin cylinder steam locomotives made by Matthew Murray of Holbeck, Leeds. George Stephenson made his first steam locomotive in 1813 (patented 1815) for the Killingworth colliery, and found smooth wheels on smooth rails provided adequate grip. Although he later recounted that they called this locomotive 'My Lord' as it was financed by Lord Ravensworth, it seems that it was known at the time as Blücher. In 1814 William Stewart was engaged by Parkend Coal Co in the Forest of Dean for the construction of a steam locomotive, which when trialled was reported to be successful. Stewart did not receive his expected reward and the two parties parted on bad terms. Stewart was 'obliged to abandon the engine to that Company'. In 1821, a wagonway was proposed to connect the mines at West Durham, Darlington and the River Tees at Stockton, George Stephenson successfully argued that horse-drawn wagonways were obsolete and a steam-powered railway could carry 50 times as much coal. In 1825 he built the locomotive "Locomotion" for the Stockton and Darlington Railway in England's northeast, which became the world's first public steam railway in 1825, via both horse power and steam power on different runs.
4-8-4
The 242F class express passenger locomotives were designed by the "Red Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Españoles" (RENFE) in 1955 and were remarkably well-proportioned. Developed from a preceding Mountain type, they had improved steam passages and developed 30 to 40 per cent more power at medium cut-offs and high speed. Ten of these locomotives were built by "La Maquinista Terrestre y Maritima SA" in Barcelona to burn fuel oil. They had Witte type smoke deflectors and were fitted with a double KylChap (Kylälä-Chapelon) blast-pipe, a Worthington feedwater heater and a "Traitement Integral Armand" (TIA) water-softening device. To increase the comfort of the locomotive crew, the cabs had wooden floors mounted on springs, and the seats of the driver and fireman were also sprung, a very welcome improvement for long runs on poor tracks. These locomotives were painted in a green livery when turned out from the builder's works at Barcelona and were consequently nicknamed "Los Verdes" (The Greens). 
The 242F class was the fastest Spanish steam locomotive. When tested on the line from Barcelona to Tarragona across of practically level and straight line between Vilanova i la Geltrú and San Vincente, a speed exceeding was sustained twice, first with a train of 430 tons and then with a train of 480 tons. High-capacity tests took place between Madrid and Ávila when a train weighing 426 tons, including a dynamometer car, was hauled at sustained speeds of up a gradient of (1 in 286), up a gradient of (1 in 95) and up a gradient of (1 in 44.5). The gross horsepower figures recorded with the dynamometer car were 1790, 2350 and 2320 respectively, the calculated horsepower on the rail being 2600, 3400 and 3580. The latter output translates to about .
2-8-0
In Italy, the state-controlled railways company "Ferrovie dello Stato" (FS), after comparing two models of 2-8-0 engine in 1906, one of which was a simple-expansion (simplex) locomotive purchased from Baldwin and another which was assembled by German and Italian builders with two cylinders compound, opted for a simplex 2-8-0 steam locomotive as basic power for its freight and mixed trains. Production of such locomotives, classified Gr. 740 in Italy, began in 1911 and stopped four years later.
4-8-2+2-8-4
The largest steam locomotive built in Europe was a Garratt, built by Beyer, Peacock and Company for the Soviet Railways in 1932. The most numerous Garratt class in the world was also a Double Mountain, the Class GMA and GMAM of the South African Railways, of which 120 were built between 1954 and 1958.
Leek and Manifold Valley Light Railway
The company only had two locomotives: outside-cylindered 2-6-4Ts, built by Kitson & Co. of Leeds in 1904, which were the first 2-6-4T locomotives to run in Britain - the first standard gauge examples being the Great Central Railway's Class 1B of 1914. Number 1 was named "E.R. Calthrop", after the line's engineer, and number 2 was named "J.B. Earle" (the resident engineer). Due to the influence of Calthrop, the locomotives had a somewhat colonial appearance with large headlights which were never used. They also had fittings for cow catchers - again never fitted, and they sported rerailing jacks by the smokebox. The locos were originally painted brown with gold and black lining, after the grouping replaced by crimson lake with gold and black lining. Latterly, after the Great Depression had set in, they ran in plain black.
Canadian National class N-4 2-8-0
Canadian National Railway (CN) Class N-4 steam locomotives were of 2-8-0 wheel arrangement in the Whyte notation, or 1′D in UIC classification. These locomotives were built for the Grand Trunk Railway (GT) from 1906 until GT began purchasing class S freight locomotives in 1913. Class N-4 were built as Richmond compound locomotives with boilers feeding and by cylinders; but most had been rebuilt as simple single expansion locomotives by GT. The most satisfactory rebuilding method was designated sub-class N-4-a by CN, and lesser numbers of sub-classes N-4-b through N-4-f represent alternative rebuilding designs. Both GT and CN took some of these rebuilding efforts out of their original numerical sequence. CN numbered class N-4-a locomotives from 2525 through 2660 and numbered the alternative rebuilding classes from 2661 through 2686. The rebuilt simplified locomotives remained in freight service until the final replacement of steam with diesel locomotives.
Steam locomotive
On the contiguous North American standard gauge network across Canada, Mexico and the United States, the use of standard gauge main line steam locomotion using 4-8-4s built in 1946 for handling freight between Mexico City and Irapuato lasted until 1968. The Mexican Pacific line, a standard gauge short line in the state of Sinaloa, was reported in August 1987 to still be using steam, with a roster of one 4-6-0, two 2-6-2s and one 2-8-2.
0-8-4T
The first example was the Great Central Railway Class 8H of 1907. These were designed for hump shunting and so required high tractive effort, good adhesion and traction for starting from rest. Although developed from the 8A tender class, and having some interchangeable parts in their running gear, they also had three cylinders rather than two. The three cylinder tank locomotive was in fashion at this time, as a means of achieving good acceleration from rest, owing to their more even power delivery and the reduced risk of wheelslip. This three-cylindered pattern had begun with Holden's "Decapod" of 1902 and carried through into Worsdell and Raven's fast passenger tank locomotives of 4-6-2T and 4-4-4T layout for the North Eastern Railway in 1910 and 1913. Worsdell also designed a comparable heavy shunter of his own, the Class X, although this used the 4-8-0T layout with a leading bogie, rather than trailing.
Southern Pacific class AC-4
Southern Pacific Railroad's AC-4 (meaning Articulated Consolidation) class of steam locomotives was the first class of 4-8-8-2 cab forward locomotives. They were intended to improve on the railroad's MC (meaning Mallet-Consolidation) class 2-8-8-2 locomotives with a larger firebox. Hence the four-wheel leading truck (instead of the two-wheel).
4-6-4
The Glasgow and South Western Railway and a number of other railways also had tank locomotive classes of this wheel arrangement.The first Hudson locomotive in North America was built in 1927 for the New York Central Railroad (NYC) by American Locomotive Company (ALCO), to the railroad's design. The locomotive proved to be very successful and was named the Hudson type, after the Hudson River. Thirteen of these locomotives, one J-1 type and twelve J-3a types, were streamlined for use with named passenger trains like the "Empire State Express" and the "20th Century Limited". Between the NYC and its subsidiaries, the Boston and Albany Railroad (B&A), the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway (CCC&StL or "Big Four") and the Michigan Central Railroad (MC), they acquired altogether 275 locomotives of several different types, the largest Hudson fleet in North America.
2-8-8-8-8-2
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, a 2-8-8-8-8-2 has two leading wheels, four sets of eight driving wheels, and two trailing wheels. Because of its length, such a locomotive must be an articulated locomotive. It is not longer than a normal articulated; the fourth set of drivers is located under the tender.
2-6-2
The first United Kingdom 2-6-2 tender locomotive was the unsuccessful prototype Midland Railway Paget locomotive of 1908. Thereafter, the wheel arrangement was rare on tender locomotives, with the exception of two classes on the London and North Eastern Railway. These were the Class V2 and Class V4 mixed traffic locomotives which totalled 186 locomotives between them.
2-8-8-8-4
The XA was sent back to Baldwin in 1920 and was rebuilt as two locomotives, a 2-8-8-0 and a 2-8-2. Unlike their progenitor which lasted only a few years in service, these two locomotives remained in service until 1953.
0-4-4T
In the UK the earliest 0-4-4's were well tanks. Both John Chester Craven of the London Brighton and South Coast Railway and James Cudworth of the South Eastern Railway (UK) introduced classes in 1866. They were followed by Matthew Kirtley on the Midland Railway(26 locomotive built 1869-70) and Patrick Stirling on the Great Northern Railway (48 locomotive built 1873-81). The more common side-tank version was introduced on the Great Eastern Railway by Samuel W. Johnson in 1872, and was soon afterwards adopted by most mainline railways in the UK, and became the standard configuration for a passenger tank locomotive until about 1900. Examples have included the LSWR O2 Class, Midland Railway 2228 Class, the LSWR M7 Class and the Caledonian Railway 439 Class. The last British design of 0-4-4T were the LMS Stanier 0-4-4T of 1932 which were based on the Midland Railway 2228 Class.
2-8-8-4
When the U.S. entered World War II The American railroads saw increases in traffic. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, along with other railroads, wanted to purchase more of the diesel locomotives since they were showing improved performance over steam locomotives. But the War Production Board regulated the production of steam and diesel locomotives until the war emergency was over. So along with producing 40 new class T-3 4-8-2 type locomotives built in-house at their Mt. Clare shops in Baltimore, Maryland, the B&O took delivery of 30 class EM-1 Yellowstones in 1944 and 1945, the largest number and the smallest of this type built by Baldwin as well as the most modern.
2-8-4
Some of these locomotives survived in service up to the end of steam traction on the JNR in 1974.
4-8-4
The wheel arrangement was an obvious progression from the Mountain type and, like the Berkshire and Hudson types, an example of the "Super Power" concept in steam locomotive design that made use of the larger firebox that could be supported by the four-wheel trailing truck, which allowed improved free steaming, particularly at speed. This was combined with the stability at speed brought about by the four-wheel leading truck and the greater adhesion of the eight driving wheels. The evolution to the type occurred in the United States of America soon after the Lima Locomotive Works introduced the concept of "Lima Super Power" in 1925, making heavy 2-8-2 and 2-8-4 type locomotives. The prototype was built to Super Power principles by American Locomotive Company (ALCO) for the Northern Pacific Railway (NP) in 1926, with a four-wheel trailing truck to carry the weight of a very large firebox that was designed to burn low quality lignite coal. The potential benefit of supporting a firebox with a grate on a four-wheel trailing truck was quickly realized by locomotive designers since, given the truck’s additional weight of approximately and the of additional engine weight that a four-wheel truck could carry above that of a two-wheel truck, the difference of was available to be used for increased boiler capacity.
The type arrived on the locomotive scene at a time when nearly all the important design improvements had already been proven, such as the superheater, mechanical stoker, outside valve gear, the Delta trailing truck and the one-piece bed frame of cast steel with integrally cast cylinders, which did much to advance the application of roller bearings on steam locomotives since it gave the strength and rigidity to hold them in correct alignment. In 1930, the Timken Company actually used a built by ALCO with roller bearings on all axles and called the Timken 1111, to demonstrate the value of their sealed roller bearings over nearly every mainline in the United States. The Timken 1111 was subsequently sold to the NP, where it became NP No. 2626, their sole Class A-1 locomotive.
GWR 2884 Class
Between 1945 and 1947, coal shortages caused GWR to experiment with oil fired 2800 locomotives. Eight of the 2884 class were converted and renumbered from 4850. The experiment, encouraged by the government was abandoned in 1948 once the extra maintenance costs were calculated and the bill had arrived for the imported oil.
The year 1948 also saw one of the 2884 class, No.3803 (now preserved), emerge remarkably successfully from the 1948 Locomotive Exchange Trials against more modern engines including the LMS 8F and the WD Austerity 2-8-0 and WD Austerity 2-10-0. It took the appearance in 1954 of the British Railways BR standard class 9F 2-10-0 to displace the 2800s from their main role of mineral haulage. Nevertheless, there was still work for them right up to the end of steam on the Western region in 1965. Six decades of service testify to the fundamental excellence of Churchward's original conception.
4-6-0
A few days after William Norris completed the "Chesapeake", Hinkley Locomotive Works completed their first locomotive, the "New Hampshire", for the Boston and Maine Railroad. The first from Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works was the already mentioned "Susquehanna" for the Erie Railroad. Baldwin's first locomotive did not appear until 1852.
Through the 1860s and into the 1870s, demand for locomotives of the wheel arrangement grew as more railroad executives switched from purchasing a single, general-purpose type of locomotive such as the 4-4-0 American at that time, to purchasing locomotives designed for a specific purpose. Both the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) were early adopters of the , using them for fast freight as well as heavy passenger trains.
USRA 2-8-8-2
While the 2-8-8-2 had been built in the United States since 1909, most development work had gone into making subsequent locomotives larger and heavier. The Norfolk and Western Railway however, had taken development in a different direction. By using smaller cylinders and higher boiler pressure, the result was a locomotive capable of powerful performance, and a turn of speed higher than the maximum of the ‘traditional’ designs.