A geared steam locomotive is a type of steam locomotive which uses gearing, usually reduction gearing, in the drivetrain, as opposed to the common directly driven design.
The Shay locomotive is a geared steam locomotive that originated and was primarily used in North America. The locomotives were built to the patents of Ephraim Shay, who has been credited with the popularization of the concept of a geared steam locomotive. Although the design of Ephraim Shay's early locomotives differed from later ones, there is a clear line of development that joins all Shays. Shay locomotives were especially suited to logging, mining and industrial operations and could operate successfully on steep or poor quality track.
The Baldwin Locomotive Works (BLW) was an American manufacturer of railroad locomotives from 1825 to 1951. Originally located in Philadelphia, it moved to nearby Eddystone, Pennsylvania, in the early 20th century. The company was for decades the world's largest producer of steam locomotives, but struggled to compete as demand switched to diesel locomotives. Baldwin produced the last of its 70,000-plus locomotives in 1951, before merging with the Lima-Hamilton Corporation on September 11, 1951, to form the Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corporation.
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, a 2-10-4 locomotive has two leading wheels on one axle, usually in a Bissel truck, ten coupled driving wheels on five axles, and four trailing wheels on two axles, usually in a bogie. These were referred to as the Texas type in most of the United States, the Colorado type on the Burlington Route, and the Selkirk type in Canada.
A 2-8-8-4 steam locomotive, under the Whyte notation, has two leading wheels, two sets of eight driving wheels, and a four-wheel trailing truck. The type was generally named the Yellowstone, a name given it by the first owner, the Northern Pacific Railway, whose lines ran near Yellowstone National Park. Seventy-two Yellowstone-type locomotives were built for four U.S. railroads.
The New York Central Hudson was a popular 4-6-4 "Hudson" type steam locomotive built by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) and the Lima Locomotive Works in three series from 1927 to 1938 for the New York Central Railroad. Named after the Hudson River, the 4-6-4 wheel arrangement came to be known as the "Hudson" type in the United States, as these locomotives were the first examples built and used in North America. Built for high-speed passenger train work, the Hudson locomotives were famously known for hauling the New York Central's crack passenger trains, such as the 20th Century Limited and the Empire State Express. With the onset of diesel locomotives by the mid-20th Century, all Hudson locomotives were retired and subsequently scrapped by 1957, with none preserved today except for a converted tender from J-1d 5313, which is preserved at the Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Under the Whyte notation, a 2-8-4 is a steam locomotive that has two unpowered leading wheels, followed by eight coupled and powered driving wheels, and four trailing wheels. 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.
A 4-4-4-4 steam locomotive, in the Whyte notation for describing locomotive wheel arrangements, has a four-wheel leading truck, two sets of four driving wheels, and a four-wheel trailing truck. While it would be possible to make an articulated locomotive of this arrangement, the only 4-4-4-4s ever built were duplex locomotives—with two sets of cylinders driving two sets of driven wheels in one rigid frame, essentially a 4-8-4 with divided drive.
The 2-6-6-6 is an articulated locomotive type with two 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, where it was used to haul loaded coal trains over the Allegheny Mountains. The other was the "Blue Ridge" class for the Virginian Railway. These were some of the most powerful reciprocating steam locomotives ever built, at 7,500 hp, and one of the heaviest at 386 tons for the locomotive itself plus 215 tons for the loaded tender.
The BLH S12 was a 1,200-horsepower (890 kW) diesel-electric locomotive intended for use in yard switching. Utilizing a turbocharged 6-cylinder version of the powerful 606A diesel prime mover, S12s were known for their "lugging" power, despite being temperamental. Like most BLH switchers, the S12 had AAR Type-A switcher trucks in a B-B wheel arrangement. 451 units were built between 1951 and 1956, when BLH left the locomotive market.
The Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad (YMSPRR) is a historic 3 ft narrow gauge railroad with two operating steam train locomotives located near Fish Camp, California, in the Sierra National Forest near the southern entrance to Yosemite National Park. Rudy Stauffer organized the YMSPRR in 1961, utilizing historic railroad track, rolling stock and locomotives to construct a tourist line along the historic route of the Madera Sugar Pine Lumber Company.
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, a 4-8-6 locomotive would have had four leading wheels, eight coupled driving wheels and six trailing wheels.
The BLH AS-16 was a diesel-electric locomotive rated at 1,625 hp (1,212 kW), that rode on two-axle trucks, having a B-B wheel arrangement. It was the successor to Baldwin's DRS-4-4-1500 model, and remained in production until Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton quit the locomotive manufacturing business in 1956.
The BLH S8 was an 875-horsepower (652 kW) diesel-electric locomotive intended for use in yard switching. The Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corporation produced a total of 63 units between 1951 and 1953. Of these, nine were "calf" units built for Oliver Iron Mining Company in Minnesota. A tenth calf had been built for them on order, but when delivery was refused, it was fitted with a cab, and converted to a regular S8.
The A-3177 (LT-2500) was a diesel-electric transfer-unit locomotive, built by the Lima-Hamilton Corporation between 1950 and 1951. The A-3177 was the final locomotive model produced by Lima-Hamilton before the company merged with the Baldwin Locomotive Works in September 1951 to form the Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corporation (BLH).
The A-3080 (LS-1000) is a diesel-electric switching locomotive built between May 1949 and April 1950, by the Lima-Hamilton Corporation of Lima, Ohio, United States. The A-3080 is a 1,000 hp switcher, which became the standard for Lima's designs. By changing fuel rack settings, the A-3080 was upgraded to the A-3170, producing 1,200 horsepower from the same turbocharged Hamilton T89SA four-stroke, eight cylinder inline diesel engine, a Westinghouse generator and four Westinghouse traction motors provided the 74,508 lbf of tractive effort.
The BLH RS-12 railroad locomotive was a 1,200 hp (895 kW) diesel-electric road-switcher configured with an AAR type B-B wheel arrangement. It was the follow-on model to the former Baldwin DRS-4-4-1000, first introduced in 1948. It was more successful than its predecessor selling 50 units to eight railroads, versus 22 units to three railroads. Only one railroad, The Pennsylvania Railroad bought both models.
"Superpower steam" was a term coined by Lima Locomotive Works in the mid-1920s, referring to steam locomotives with booster-equipped four-wheel trailing trucks supporting large fireboxes, as well as enlarged superheaters. The wheel arrangements introduced in the 1920s for these locomotives were the 4-6-4's, 2-8-4's, 4-8-4's and 2-10-4's; and in the 1930s, the 2-6-6-4's. The term "superpower" was later often applied to all locomotives with 4-wheel trailing truck arrangements, though many did not have boosters and almost all steam of any wheel arrangement built after that time had large superheaters.
A "Berkshire" type steam locomotive refers to a steam locomotive built with a 2-8-4 wheel configuration. The design was initially intended to improve on the USRA Mikado design (2-8-2), which was deemed to lack sufficient speed and horsepower. That was overcome by the inclusion of a larger, 100-square-foot (9.3 m2) firebox, requiring an extra trailing axle, giving the locomotive its distinctive 2-8-4 wheel arrangement.
The Louisville and Nashville M-1 was a class of forty-two 2-8-4 steam locomotives built during and after World War II as dual-service locomotives. They were nicknamed "Big Emmas" by crews and were built in three batches between 1942 and 1949.
