A total of 1364 'Pacific' steam locomotives were built for the major French railway companies, (including those inherited by the terms of the Armistice in 1918). Some of these were later transferred to other companies or regions.
Chemins de fer d'Alsace et de Lorraine : 50 locomotives
Compagnie de l'Est : 40 locomotives
Compagnie du Nord : 139 locomotives
Compagnie de l'Ouest : 2 locomotives
Chemins de fer de l'État : 352 locomotives
The locomotives numbered 3-231 C by the SNCF were also reclassified from D to J according to their degree of rebuilding or improvement.
Compagnie du PO (Paris-Orléans) : 279 locomotives
Compagnie du Midi : 40 locomotives
Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée : 462 locomotives New construction
PLM Rebuilds
SNCF Rebuilds
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-6-2 represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and two trailing wheels on one axle. The 4-6-2 locomotive became almost globally known as a Pacific type.
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-8-2 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.
André Chapelon was a French mechanical engineer and designer of advanced steam locomotives. A graduate engineer of Ecole Centrale Paris, he was one of very few locomotive designers who brought a rigorous scientific method to their design, and he sought to apply up-to-date theories and knowledge in subjects such as thermodynamics, and gas and fluid flow. Chapelon's work was an early example of what would later be called modern steam, and influenced the work of many later designers of those locomotives, such as Livio Dante Porta.
The Great Western Railway (GWR) 7200 Class is a class of 2-8-2T steam locomotive. They were the only 2-8-2Ts built and used by a British railway, and the largest tank engines to run on the Great Western Railway.
The Compagnie des chemins de fer du Midi, also known in English as the Midi or Southern Railway, was an early French railway company which operated a network of routes in the southwest of the country, chiefly in the area between its main line – which ran from Bordeaux, close to the Atlantic coast, to Sète on the Mediterranean – and the Pyrenees.
État 231-500 to 231-783 was a series of 4-6-2 steam locomotives of the Chemin de fer de l'État.
Nord 3.1201 to 3.1290 was a class of 90 Pacific (4-6-2) type steam locomotive of the Chemins de Fer du Nord. They served in the north of France and Belgium. The first batch were built in 1923, and last remaining were retired from service in the 1960s. These locomotives were widely known as "Superpacifics" due to their high performance, which made them famous even in Britain.
Gaston du Bousquet (1839–1910) was a French engineer who was Chief of Motive Power of the Chemin de Fer du Nord, designer of locomotives and professor at École centrale de Lille.
D is a series of locomotives used by Swedish State Railways. 333 units were built by ASEA between 1925-43. It was used for both passenger and freight trains until it was taken out of service in 1988.
A compound locomotive is a steam locomotive which is powered by a compound engine, a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages. The locomotive was only one application of compounding. Two and three stages were used in ships, for example.
The Prussian Class P 8 of the Prussian state railways was a 4-6-0 steam locomotive built from 1906 to 1923 by the Berliner Maschinenbau and twelve other German factories. The design was created by Robert Garbe. It was intended as a successor to the Prussian P 6, which was regarded as unsatisfactory.
The London and North Western Railway (LNWR) Class D was a class of 0-8-0 steam locomotives. They were simple engine rebuilds of earlier Webb Class A three-cylinder compound engines.
Steam traction was the predominant form of motive power used by the Deutsche Reichsbahn on its narrow-gauge railways. For certain duties diesel locomotives were also used, albeit these were usually second-hand or rebuilt engines.
Nord 4.061 to 4.340 were a class of 2-8-0 tender goods locomotives of the Chemins de fer du Nord. At nationalisation on 1 January 1938 they all passed to the SNCF who renumbered them 2-140.A.1 to 2-140.A.280.
Nord 3.1101 and 3.1102 were a class of two express passenger 4-6-4 (Baltic) tender locomotives designed by Gaston du Bousquet for the Chemins de Fer du Nord, and built in the company's La Chapelle Workshops.
PLM 241.C.1 was a French four-cylinder 4-8-2 (Mountain) compound steam locomotive, built as a prototype for the Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée.
The 2C2 3100 were a class of electric locomotives of the Chemins de fer du Midi, France. They were ordered in 1914 but, because of the First World War, deliveries did not begin until 1923. They were designed for alternating current at 12 kV, 16⅔ Hz but, before construction, they were re-designed for direct current at 1,500 V.
Midi E 3301 was a prototype electric locomotive of Class E 3300 designed for the Chemins de fer du Midi, France. Because of poor performance, it was refused by the Compagnie du Midi and was re-deployed to Swiss railways. On 1 May 1919, it was classified Fb 2/5 11001 and, in 1920, it became experimental locomotive Be 2/5 11001 of the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB).
The Prussian G 7.2 was a class of 0-8-0 tender compound locomotives of the Prussian state railways. In the 1925 Deutschen Reichsbahn renumbering plan, the former Prussian locomotives produced from 1895 to 1911 were given the class designation 55.7–13; while the former Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg Friedrich-Franz Railway locomotives were classified as 55.57.