4-8-0s (WAS: Class M's, Mollies, class names and the like)

[NW Mailing List]

I certainly didn't mean to suggest that N&W and the SP were the only 4-8-0 users; I think that it was a popular wheel arrangement for a few years around the turn of the twentieth century, but it rapidly fell out of favor afterward.  I could speculate as to why, but others on this list are probably more knowledgable.  (Heavier rail in response to steel cars made heavy 2-8-0s more practical . . . ?)  

They probably lasted so long on N&W because the M was such a satisfactory design (perhaps despite its wheel arrangement). The SP's 95 4-8-0s were built over an 18 year period beginning in 1882 (maybe the first 4-8-0s?) as their heaviest mountain power (like the Ms), but turned out to be ideal for for the lightly-built and hilly Oregon lumber branches in later years.  Two of them lasted 67 years.  SP had seven subclasses of 4-8-0s.  (SP info from Dunscomb's "A Century of SP Steam Locomotives".)

I fell in love with 4-8-0s from watching the N&PBL's M-1s pass my childhood home in 1950. 

pete groom
On Sep 10, 2013, at 4:28 PM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:


> Check CNJ they had 4-8-0 

> 

> Sent from my iPhone

> 

> On Sep 10, 2013, at 16:27, "NW Mailing List" <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:

> 

>> I believe that the SP was the other principal user of 4-8-0s in later days, not the UP (I don't remember seeing a pic of a UP 4-8-0).  They ended up on the Oregon branch lines of the SP and lasted til quite late in the day.  I think that the most popular "type name" for the 4-8-0 was "Twelve -Wheeler";  all the SP locos were in the "TW" classes, from the days when SP class designations were generally based on prevailing type names.

>> 

>> BTW, 4-8-0s were very common on British colonial 42" gauge lines - South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, etc.  Lots of these are living on in preservation.

>> 

>> pete groom

>> 


. . .