The

Chesapeake and Ohio Railway The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond t ...

's class L-2 comprised eight coal-fired

4-6-4 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels, six powered and coupled driving wheels and four trailing wheels. In France where the type was first used, it is known as t ...

"Hudson" type

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 numbered 300–307 and built by the

Baldwin Locomotive Works 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 t ...

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

1941 Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January–August – 10,072 men, women and children with mental and physical disabilities are asphyxiated with carbon monoxide in a gas chamber, at Hadamar Eu ...

. They had roller bearings on all axles, and the first-built, No. 300, also had roller bearings on its

side Side or Sides may refer to: Geometry * Edge (geometry) of a polygon (two-dimensional shape) * Face (geometry) of a polyhedron (three-dimensional shape) Places * Side (Ainis), a town of Ainis, ancient Thessaly, Greece * Side (Caria), a town of ...

and

main rod A connecting rod, also called a 'con rod', is the part of a piston engine which connects the piston to the crankshaft. Together with the crank, the connecting rod converts the reciprocating motion of the piston into the rotation of the cranksha ...

s. No. 300 bore "Elephant ear"

smoke deflector Smoke deflectors, sometimes called "blinkers" in the UK because of their strong resemblance to the blinkers used on horses, and "elephant ears" in US railway slang, are vertical plates attached to each side of the smokebox at the front of a ste ...

s from 1948. In 1947, the C&O ordered five additional and very similar locomotives, numbering them 310–314; these were class L-2-A and differed mostly in using Franklin RC poppet valves instead of the

Baker valve gear After about 1910, the Baker valve gear was the main competitor to Walschaerts valve gear for steam locomotives in the United States. Strictly speaking it was not a valve gear but a variable expansion mechanism adapted to the Walschaerts layout repla ...

of the L-2s. These were the last express passenger steam locomotives ordered by a United States railroad, and some of the most expensive at $353,346 each, 80% more than the cost of the 8 earlier L-2 locomotives. Both classes were among the largest 4-6-4s ever built, and they were even more powerful than the C&O's L-1 class. The heaviest were the C&O's class at 443,000 lbs, They were intended to work the C&O's top-flight express trains on level ground; the railroad purchased

4-8-4 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles, eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles and four trailing wheels on two axles. The type w ...

" Greenbrier" types for mountain service. By 1953, C&O passenger services were wholly dieselized, and there was no more work for these locomotives to do. Hudson locomotives were very unsuited to freight work, with such a comparatively small proportion of their weight on the drivers. All the L2’s and L2a’s were quickly scrapped by 1953.

References

Notes

# {{DEFAULTSORT:Chesapeake and Ohio class L-2 4-6-4 locomotives

L-2 L2, L2, L02, L II, L.2 or L-2 may refer to: Astronomy * L2 point, second Lagrangian point in a two body orbiting system * L2 Puppis, star which is also known as HD 56096 * Advanced Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics, a proposed X-ray telesc ...

Baldwin locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1941 Steam locomotives of the United States Scrapped locomotives Standard gauge locomotives of the United States Passenger locomotives