2-6-6-6
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The 2-6-6-6 (in
Whyte notation Whyte notation is a classification method for steam locomotives, and some internal combustion locomotives and electric locomotives, by wheel arrangement. It was devised by Frederick Methvan Whyte, and came into use in the early twentieth ce ...
) is an
articulated locomotive An articulated locomotive is a steam locomotive (rarely, an electric locomotive) with one or more engine units that can move independent of the main frame. Articulation allows the operation of locomotives that would otherwise be too large to neg ...
type with two
leading wheels The leading wheel or leading axle or pilot wheel of a steam locomotive is an unpowered wheel or axle located in front of the driving wheels. The axle or axles of the leading wheels are normally located on a leading truck. Leading wheels are used ...
, two sets of six
driving wheels On a steam locomotive, a driving wheel is a powered wheel which is driven by the locomotive's pistons (or turbine, in the case of a steam turbine locomotive). On a conventional, non-articulated locomotive, the driving wheels are all coupled to ...
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 Lima Locomotive Works was an American firm that manufactured railroad locomotives from the 1870s through the 1950s. The company took the most distinctive part of its name from its main shop's location in Lima, Ohio. The shops were located between ...
. 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 Allegheny Mountain Range (; also spelled Alleghany or Allegany), informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less devel ...
. The other was the "Blue Ridge" class for the
Virginian Railway The Virginian Railway was a Class I railroad located in Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The VGN was created to transport high quality "smokeless" bituminous coal from southern West Virginia to port at Hampton Roads. Histor ...
. These were some of the most powerful reciprocating
steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...
s ever built, at 7,500 hp (which was only exceeded by the
Pennsylvania Railroad class Q2 The Pennsylvania Railroad's class Q2 comprised one prototype and twenty-five production duplex steam locomotives of 4-4-6-4 wheel arrangement. They were the largest non-articulated locomotives ever built and the most powerful locomotives ever ...
in indicated horsepower), and one of the heaviest at 386 tons for the locomotive itself plus 215 tons for the loaded tender. Other equivalent classifications are:
UIC classification The UIC classification of locomotive axle arrangements, sometimes known as the German classification''The Railway Data File''. Leicester: Silverdale, 2000. p. 52. . or German system,Kalla-Bishop P.M. & Greggio, Luciano, ''Steam Locomotives'', Cre ...
: 1CC3 (also known as German classification and
Italian classification The UIC classification of locomotive axle arrangements, sometimes known as the German classification''The Railway Data File''. Leicester: Silverdale, 2000. p. 52. . or German system,Kalla-Bishop P.M. & Greggio, Luciano, ''Steam Locomotives'', Cre ...
)
French classification Under the French classification system for locomotive wheel arrangements, the system is slightly different for steam and electric/diesel vehicles. Steam The French system counts axles, rather than wheels. As with Whyte notation, a conventional r ...
: 130+033
Turkish classification In the Turkish classification system for railway locomotives, the number of powered axles are followed by the total number of axles. It is identical to the Swiss system except that the latter places a slash between the two numbers. Thus 0-6-0 beco ...
: 34+36
Swiss classification For more than a century, the Swiss locomotive, multiple unit, motor coach and railcar classification system, in either its original or updated forms, has been used to name and classify the rolling stock operated on the railways of Switzerland. ...
: 3/4+3/6 The
UIC classification The UIC classification of locomotive axle arrangements, sometimes known as the German classification''The Railway Data File''. Leicester: Silverdale, 2000. p. 52. . or German system,Kalla-Bishop P.M. & Greggio, Luciano, ''Steam Locomotives'', Cre ...
is refined to (1'C)C3' for Mallet locomotives.


History

Two classes of 2-6-6-6 locomotives were built; the sixty H-8 "Allegheny" class locomotives for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) between 1941 and 1948, and the eight AG "Blue Ridge" class locomotives for the
Virginian Railway The Virginian Railway was a Class I railroad located in Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The VGN was created to transport high quality "smokeless" bituminous coal from southern West Virginia to port at Hampton Roads. Histor ...
in 1945. (The locomotives were Series AG on the Virginian, which was thought to be an abbreviation for Allegheny, but that referred to their being Articulated, Series G.) All were built by the
Lima Locomotive Works Lima Locomotive Works was an American firm that manufactured railroad locomotives from the 1870s through the 1950s. The company took the most distinctive part of its name from its main shop's location in Lima, Ohio. The shops were located between ...
. The "Allegheny" name refers to the C&O locomotives' job of hauling
coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...
trains over the
Allegheny Mountains The Allegheny Mountain Range (; also spelled Alleghany or Allegany), informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less devel ...
. C&O-1601's power output is 7,500 hp. Though it was apparent to many knowledgeable people in the railroad industry that
reciprocating piston A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is typically a heat engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert high temperature and high pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common featu ...
driven steam locomotives might soon be replaced by diesel power, Lima and C&O set out to build the ultimate in high power steam locomotives and they succeeded. No diesel engine ever surpassed the output of these giants, which were among the heaviest steam locomotives ever constructed. The three-axle trailing truck supporting the firebox was unusual, carrying over 190,000 lbs, allowing the huge firebox needed for the high power. As it turned out, steam locomotives continued in service for almost another 20 years. Gene Huddleston's book, "C&O Power", reports tests of the C&O with a
dynamometer car A dynamometer car is a railroad maintenance of way car used for measuring various aspects of a locomotive's performance. Measurements include tractive effort (pulling force), power, top speed, etc. History The first dynamometer car was probably ...
indicating momentary readings of with readings between at about . The state of calibration of the dynamometer car is not known. The calculated starting tractive effort was only , but no one has published a higher dynamometer horsepower for any steam locomotive. The locomotive was built to power coal trains on the 0.57% eastward climb from
White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia White Sulphur Springs is a city in Greenbrier County in southeastern West Virginia, United States. The population was 2,231 at the 2020 census. The city emblem consists of five dandelion flowers and the citizens celebrate spring with an annual Da ...
to
Alleghany, Virginia Alleghany is an unincorporated community in Alleghany County, Virginia, United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North Ameri ...
. With one at the front and another at the back, 11,500-ton coal trains left
Hinton, WV Hinton is a city in Summers County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 2,266 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Summers County. Hinton was established in 1873 and chartered in 1897. Hinton was named after John "Jack" Hin ...
and were at full throttle from White Sulphur Springs to the top of the grade at Alleghany. C&O's 2-6-6-6s also handled coal trains from West Virginia to Columbus, Ohio. Huddleston says that 23 locomotives were equipped with steam piping for heating passenger trains. While delivering the first group of locomotives in 1941, Lima miscalculated and misrepresented the H-8s' weight. Maintenance crews recalculated the weight, and discovered that the H-8s weighed 771,300 pounds, which was thousands of pounds heavier than Lima first claimed. The train crews that worked with the H-8s, whom were getting paid based on the locomotive's weight on the
driving wheels On a steam locomotive, a driving wheel is a powered wheel which is driven by the locomotive's pistons (or turbine, in the case of a steam turbine locomotive). On a conventional, non-articulated locomotive, the driving wheels are all coupled to ...
at the time, started seeing this misrepresentation as an attack on their
Livelihood A person's livelihood (derived from ''life-lode'', "way of life"; cf. OG ''lib-leit'') refers to their "means of securing the basic necessities (food, water, shelter and clothing) of life". Livelihood is defined as a set of activities essential t ...
. The C&O was forced to pay their crews thousands of dollars to make up for lost payment, and they subsequently
sued - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil acti ...
Lima for over 3 million dollars in 1944. Multiple unit operation in the diesel era removed the need to pack the highest horsepower in a single unit. The H-8's 80,000+ pound axle load demanded heavy rail and track structure. One H-8, the 1642, suffered a crown sheet failure and subsequent boiler explosion at
Hinton, WV Hinton is a city in Summers County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 2,266 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Summers County. Hinton was established in 1873 and chartered in 1897. Hinton was named after John "Jack" Hin ...
in June, 1953. The force of the explosion rocketed the boiler off the running gear towards the rear, killing all three crew. While these locomotives had two sources of water for the boiler, a steam turbine pump-fed
Worthington Worthington may refer to: People * Worthington (surname) * Worthington family, a British noble family Businesses * Worthington Brewery, also known as Worthington's * Worthington Corporation, founded as a pump manufacturer in 1845, later a dive ...
hot pump and one injector, it is not known whether any were defective at the time of dispatch. According to the family of the locomotive's engineer, Wilbur H. Anderson, of Hinton, previous crews had complained of a faulty water level gauge. Anderson's widow, Georgia Anderson, was given $10,000 in compensation by the C&O.


Preservation

There are only two surviving Alleghenies. Upon retirement in 1956, 1601 was donated to
The Henry Ford The Henry Ford (also known as the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and Greenfield Village, and as the Edison Institute) is a history museum complex in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, Dearborn, Michigan, United States. The museum ...
museum in
Dearborn, Michigan Dearborn is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 109,976. Dearborn is the seventh most-populated city in Michigan and is home to the largest Muslim population in the United States pe ...
, where it has been on display indoors since. 1604 was initially sent to C&O's scrap lines behind their diesel shops at
Russell, Kentucky Russell is a home rule-class city on the south bank of the Ohio River in Greenup County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 3,380 as of the 2010 census, down from 3,645 in 2000. Russell is a suburb of Ashland and part of the Hunting ...
. It was then donated to the
Virginia Museum of Transportation The Virginia Museum of Transportation is a museum devoted to the topic of transportation located in Downtown Roanoke, Virginia, US. children under two years do not to buy tickets and students can get a discounted $10.5 ticket. History The Virg ...
in Roanoke circa 1969 where it was displayed next to N&W 1218. On November 4th, 1985, it was partially damaged by a flood, which washed away the ground under it and nearly turned the locomotive over. In 1987, parent company
Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Railroad classes, Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway (U.S.), Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the ...
did a cosmetic overhaul on it at their Roanoke Shops before it was sent to
Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
to be displayed as the centerpiece of the then Mount Clare Junction shopping center which was adjacent to the
B&O Railroad Museum The B&O Railroad Museum is a museum and historic railway station exhibiting historic railroad equipment in Baltimore, Maryland. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) company originally opened the museum on July 4, 1953, with the name of the Balt ...
. In 1989, the shopping center donated it to the museum, where it presently resides.


References


Notes


Bibliography

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External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20080127121645/http://www.steamlocomotive.com/allegheny/ {{Whyte types 66,2-6-6-6 Freight locomotives Lima locomotives