Australia class NA 2-6-2 tank locomotive on the
Puffing Billy Railway In New South Wales a class of twenty locomotives, the
Z26 class, formerly the (I)17 class, entered service in 1892 and operated until the end of steam. Two are preserved, no. 2606 at the Rail Transport Museum at Thirlmere and no. 2605 at the State Mine Museum in Lithgow. The principal 2-6-2T locomotives which were built for the
narrow gauge system of the
Victorian Railways (VR), are the now famous "
Puffing Billy" engines. Two of these little locomotives arrived from Baldwin Locomotive works in 1898 and a total of seventeen saw service throughout the state on the various narrow gauge timber and gold lines, including the
Wangaratta and Walhalla. When the VR decided to close the Upper Ferntree Gully to Gembrook narrow gauge route in the mid-1950s, enthusiasts mounted a successful campaign to retain the line as a preservation project. Today, the
Puffing Billy Railway is one of Victoria's main tourist attractions has a fleet of saved and modified 2-6-2T engines on its active steam roster and. The
Silverton Tramway operated two locomotives from 1891, both of which are preserved in South Australia. Queensland Railways operated one 2-6-2 tender engine of the B16 class. It was built in August 1918 by the
North Ipswich Railway Workshops as an experimental engine burning coke instead of coal. After nearly 9 years burning coke, it was converted to coal in 1927. The engine spent its working life on the Brisbane to Ipswich line working coal trains. It was withdrawn in February 1950. , 1957.
Belgium The
Belgian State Railways ordered 91 inside-cylinder 2-6-2
tank engines between 1878 and 1881 (
Belgian State Railways Type 4) with large drivers and side tanks longer than the boiler. They hauled commuter trains and fast trains on short lines. Some of them survived the war and were used on local trains until 1930. After
World War I, the Belgian State Railways were desperately needing new engines in order to replace the ones that were lost or damaged during the war. They purchased 63 2-6-2
Saddle tank engines from the
Railway Operating Division (Belgian State Railways Type 22, later
SNCB Type 57) and used them for switching and light freight trains until the 1960s.
Germany Tank locomotives with this wheel arrangement spread very quickly in Germany after the good Austrian experience with the Series 30. The
Württembergische T 5, the
Badische VI b and the
Badische VI c as well as the saxon
Sächsische XIV HT, all developed before the
First World War, were successful designs, many locomotives of these series were used well into the 1960s. Only the prussian
T6 was a bad design, the few examples were taken out of service shortly after the First World War. From 1928 the
Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft procured over 500 units of their
class 64 standard steam locomotives. Private railways such as the
Eutin-Lübeck Railway with locomotives
11 to 14 also procured tank locomotives with this wheel arrangement in the interwar period. In contrast, the first tender locomotives were initially unsuccessful. The
Oldenburgische S 10, which was delivered in three copies in 1916, was extremely uneconomical due to the boiler, which was badly matched to the steam engine, and was taken out of service after less than ten years. The
Badische IV g from
Baden was a downright faulty construction, neither performing well on flat ground nor on the
Schwarzwaldbahn. The Baden State Railways gave away the five copies in 1918 in the course of deliveries after the
Armistice of Compiègne to France. The French side also wanted to get rid of the locomotives soon and agreed to return them to Germany, which was again refused in Baden. They were finally retired in France in the early 1930s. It was not until 1941 that the Deutsche Reichsbahn received prairie tender locomotives again. The
series 23, which was procured in two prototypes, was to be procured as a passenger locomotive in up to 800 copies from 1941 as a replacement for the prussian
P8, but the
Second World War made these plans obsolete in favor of urgently required freight locomotives. After the war, both the
Deutsche Bundesbahn with the
DB class 23 and the
Deutsche Reichsbahn in the GDR with the
DR class 23.10 each procured a good 100 new prairie locomotives. However, due to structural change, the last units remained in operation for an average of less than 20 years and were taken out of service until around the mid-1970s.
Hungary The most numerous steam locomotive type used in Hungary was the , built from 1909 onwards, which were still at work in the last days of steam. The
Hungarian State Railways (MÁV) also ran three important classes of 2-6-2
tank engines. These were the large class built from 1917, and the smaller and .
Indonesia With the successful railway line construction between Djocjakarta (
Yogyakarta)–
Magelang in 1902, Magelang–Setjang (Secang)–
Ambarawa in 1903–1905 and branch line between Setjang–Temangoeng (
Temanggung)–Parakan in 1907,
Nederlandsch-Indische Spoorweg Maatschappij (NIS) as a private railway company of
Dutch East Indies (now
Indonesia) felt the need of new locomotives as a complement to their NIS Class 250 which had been operational beforehand. They ordered a new special 2-6-2
T from (
Werkspoor, N.V.,
Amsterdam), Netherlands with specifications has a maximum axle weight of 10 tons with an effective
tractive force of 5000 kg, could pass on the
3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge Riggenbach rack line between Jambu–Bedono–Gemawang which has 6.5% incline with 8 carriages or wagons at a speed of 30 km/h (18.6 mph) and could pull 200 wagons on flat line also at a speed of 30 km/h. In addition, it has 3
sight glasses with a function to keep the water at the specified level when passing 6.5% grade which prevent any hazardous condition. The NIS received 15 units of their 2-6-2T, classified as NIS Class 270 (271–285) and came in two batches in 1909–1912. The NIS Class 270 were the most modern locomotives of the time, surpassing the capabilities of many NIS locomotives which were manufactured by Germans. These NIS 2-6-2Ts were the first
superheated engine, a split-teak wood burner, using ''
Walschaert's'' steam flow systems and
Belpaire type firebox. The smokestack is equipped with dumper valve which could be opened using a motor servo connected to the driver's cabin. The temperature measurement in the firebox using a remote sensing pyrometer made by
Steinle & Hartug and placed in the superheater box, while the dial could be read from the cabin. The cylinder engine lubrication system using an eight-joint system by Alex Friedmann from
Vienna, Austria. The brake systems could be said complicated at the time, using hand brake, steam cylinder brake,
Exter type emergency brake and
Riggenbach type rear pressure brake. These locomotives dominated the Temanggung–Parakan line along with the NIS Class 250 counterparts, they could also be operated on steep rack line between Jambu–Bedono–Gemawang that could only be passed by rack locomotive just like NIS Class 230 (DKA B25). Apart from operating on those lines, NIS Class 270 also operated on the
Semarang–Gundih to
Surabaya lines. During
Second World War, the NIS Class 270 were renumbered as C24 by the Japanese and one unit of them was damaged during the war. After Indonesian Independence, by their railway administrative PJKA or
Perusahaan Jawatan Kereta Api still placed them mainly at Jogja/Yogya area and around 1970s they were also dispersed around
Central Java such as
Purwokerto. The closure of the Yogyakarta-Magelang-Parakan and Ambarawa lines put an end to the duties of many C24 locomotives, from 14 of them only C24 07 is preserved at
Ambarawa Railway Museum.
Staatsspoorwegen (SS) imported 44 s from
Hanomag,
Hohenzollern,
Borsig and
Werkspoor came in 1929–1930 and classified as SS Class 1700. These SS 1700s were needed by SS to fulfil congested volume of passenger and freight traffics on mountain lines of
West Java, especially on
Bandung–Banjar line. SS forced to postpone the purchase of new locomotives from Europe for South and West Sumatra divisions due to
Great Depression in 1929. As a result, 23 units were allocated to
South Sumatra and 3 units to
West Sumatra. During Japanese occupation in 1942–1945, the SS 1700 were renumbered as C30 class and many of these locomotives were brought by them to
Malay Peninsula and
Indochina just like Singapore and Cambodia while 3 units of them were moved to Muaro–Pekanbaru death railway line in
Sumatra. Furthermore, those to which Japanese transferred abroad had been re-gauged to
1,000 mm, and most of them had been scrapped after the war ended.
New Zealand A fleet of five tank engines, built by
Manning Wardle of
Leeds in England, were supplied to New Zealand in 1884–85. The private
Wellington and Manawatu Railway (WMR) used them for construction, maintenance and local service work. Three were later taken over as the
New Zealand Railways (NZR)
WH class in 1908. The second batch of Prairie locomotives was built to an order for the
New Zealand Railways Department, with the initial order for ten being let to
Nasmyth, Wilson and Company of
Manchester,
England. This later became the
NZR V class which, due to political interference and their being overweight, did not go into traffic until 1890. New Zealand's third batch of Prairie locomotives was ordered by the WMR in 1884. Their design was almost identical to that of the NZR V class, though they were slightly heavier. They could burn any light fuel, coal or wood as available, and entered service in 1886, soon after the WMR started operating. In 1908, with the purchase of the company by the NZR, they were also awarded the V classification. In 1885,
Baldwin Locomotive Works built New Zealand's fourth batch of Prairie locomotives. These were to become the
NZR N class. Six were delivered in 1885 and were of an almost identical design to the previous, but altered to utilise off-the-shelf components supplied by Baldwin. In 1901, four more were built for the NZR, but these were fitted with piston valves actuated by
Walschaerts valve gear. In 1891, two of these locomotives had also been built to the same design for the WMR. In 1908, with the purchase of the WMR by NZR, all of these engines were classified as N class. Between 1894 and 1904, four similar engines were built by Baldwin for the WMR. In 1908, these became the NZR's
NA class and
NC class, with two units each. The NZR's
Addington Workshops joined the list of Prairie suppliers in 1889, producing the first of two
NZR W class tank engines. These were followed between 1892 and 1901 with eleven similar
NZR WA class tank engines. Baldwin followed this up with ten similar
NZR WB class Prairie tank engines in 1898. In 1930–31, after nearly thirty years of
4-6-2 Pacific and
4-6-4 Baltic locomotive production, New Zealand dusted off its Prairie plans with the release into service of twenty-four
NZR C class 2-6-2 locomotives, designed primarily for shunting and branch line work.
Poland at work in summer 1976 The H. Cegielski Metal Works in Poznań produced 122 OKl27 class locomotives for the Polish State Railways (PKP) during the period between 1928 and 1933. Between 1951 and 1954, Fablok built a series of 116 Ol49 class 2-6-2
tender locomotives for the PKP.
Romania Romania designed the 131.000 Class to replace the older Hungarian MAV locomotives used on
Căile Ferate Române (CFR) secondary lines. A total of 67 locomotives were built at
Reşiţa Works between 1939 and 1942, numbered 131.001 to 131.067.
Russia & Soviet Union 1-3-1 In Russia, the 2-6-2 was the standard passenger locomotive. They were represented by the pre-revolutionary S (С) (Sormovskij) series and the post-revolutionary Su (Су) series locomotives, the latter of which appeared in 1928. The pre-revolutionary S-series locomotives had the characteristic pointed nose, absent on the Su locomotive. The suffix 'u' means which translates as "strengthened" or "uprated". Several Su-series locomotives are preserved in working order. However, only one pre-revolutionary S-series locomotive is still around, number S.68. It is preserved at the Saint Petersburg railway museum. , Russia The Su was the standard passenger engine on most mainline routes and it was only on the key trunk lines that the IS class 2-8-4, or later the P36 4-8-4, would be used. Therefore, the majority of passenger miles were hauled by an Su (Су). Visually, the Su was the last true Russian-look design before the American influence of high running boards, bar frames and
boxpok wheels became the norm. The Su retained such features as a clerestory skylight in the cab roof and handrails on the outside of the running board. These handrails were a result of the harsh Russian winters, when ice would build up on the running boards, making them highly dangerous. Enginemen had fallen to their death from moving trains and the fitting of promenade deck style handrails was a safety measure ordered by the Tsar in pre-revolutionary times. These features, combined with the high loading gauge, combined to give the locomotives a uniquely Russian appearance.
South Africa The world's first 2-6-2 Prairie type locomotives were also the first locomotives to enter service on the new
Cape gauge mainline of the
Cape Government Railways. They were 2-6-2 side-tank engines that were delivered between 1875 and 1879. Four-wheeled tenders were also acquired on a subsequent order and the locomotives could be operated in either a tank or tank-and-tender configuration, as circumstances demanded. These locomotives were later designated the
Cape 2nd Class. In 1901, the Zululand Railway Company, contracted for the construction of the Natal North Coast line from
Verulam to the
Tugela River, acquired one 2-6-2 side-tank locomotive as construction engine from
Baldwin Locomotive Works. Upon completion of the line in 1903, the locomotive was taken onto the roster of the
Natal Government Railways and was designated
Class I.
Switzerland Switzerland had four classes of tank locomotives. • The first was the
Bodensee–Toggenburg-Bahn (BT) class Eb 3/5 (speed limit 75 km/h), of which nine were built in 1910 by
Maffei, numbered 1 to 9. Seven were scrapped, no. 6 has been plinthed as a monument in
Degersheim and no. 9, the only one with red trim, was preserved by the
Dampf-Loki-Club Herisau in
Bauma. By 2015, the
Club del San Gottardo in
Mendrisio began to restore them to working order. • The second was the
Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) class Eb 3/5 (speed limit 75 km/h), of which 34 were built from 1911 to 1916 by
Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works (SLM), numbered 5801 to 5834. Of these, 31 were scrapped, no. 5810 was preserved by the
Verein Dampfbahn Bern in
Konolfingen, no. 5811 stands as a monument in
Baden. By 2015, the
Dampfgruppe Zürich in
Brugg began to restore them to working order. No. 5819 was preserved by the
SBB Historic in Brugg. • The third was the class Ec 3/5 (speed limit 65 km/h) of the
Lake Thun railway (TSB) and other railways of the
Bern–Lötschberg–Simplon railway group (BLS). Six engines were built by SLM from 1905 to 1907, numbered 41 to 46. After electrification of the tracks in 1921/22, all six were sold to the
Austrian Federal Railways and renumbered as class 130. • The fourth was the
Mittelthurgau-Bahn (MThB) class Ec 3/5 (speed limit 60 km/h), of which four were built in 1912 by SLM, numbered 1 to 4. Three were scrapped and no. 3 was preserved by the
Verein Historische Mittel-Thurgau-Bahn in
Romanshorn. It occasionally pulls the so-called
Mostindien-Express. In 1997, the MThB no. 3 was used as the prototype for the locomotive in the animated
20th Century Fox motion picture
Anastasia, where it was given the appearance of a Soviet Union continental locomotive numbered 2747.
United Kingdom Standard gauge '' The first United Kingdom 2-6-2 tender locomotive was the unsuccessful prototype
Midland Railway Paget locomotive of 1908. Thereafter, the wheel arrangement was rare on
tender locomotives, with the exception of two classes on the
London and North Eastern Railway. These were the
Class V2 and
Class V4 mixed traffic locomotives which totalled 186 locomotives between them. In contrast, 2-6-2T locomotives were very widely used on suburban passenger services, particularly by the
Great Western Railway (GWR), who built four main classes between 1903 and 1947. These include the 'Large Prairies' (
5100,
3150 and
6100 classes), the 'Small Prairies' (
4400,
4500 and
4575 classes) and the non-standard
3901 class rebuilt from
0-6-0 tender engines. The
Railway Operating Division received 70 2-6-2
saddle tank engines built by
Baldwin Locomotive Works in the
United States. They were shipped to
France and used near the front line. These engines, nicknamed "
tortoises" were probably inspired by the saddle tanks used on
forest railways in the USA; they had very small drivers and could run tight curves. After the war, all remaining engines (63) were sold to the
Belgian State Railways. The rest was probably destroyed during the war and some of them may have been cannibalised for spares. Sir
Henry Fowler of the
London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) introduced a successful
class in 1930, which became the basis of further similar classes by
Stanier in 1935 and
Ivatt in 1946. Sir
Nigel Gresley of the
London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) introduced his
V1 and V3 classes in 1930. The last new 2-6-2T locomotives in Britain were the
BR Standard Class 2 2-6-2T, built between 1953 and 1957. The design derived from the earlier
LMS Ivatt Class 2 2-6-2T.
Narrow gauge 2-6-2T No. 7
Owain Glyndŵr at AberystwythThe 2-6-2T layout was popular for large
narrow gauge engines, but the design was modified to allow the use of a
firebox much wider than the
track gauge. A
standard gauge 2-6-2T normally has inside frames and the firebox is placed between the second and third coupled axles. A narrow gauge one, on the other hand, has outside frames and the firebox is placed behind the third coupled axle and clear of the wheels. To minimise the rear overhang, the fuel is therefore carried in side-bunkers alongside the firebox, instead of in a rear bunker. Preserved examples include the
Welsh Highland Railway's Russell and the
Vale of Rheidol Railway locomotives.
United States Narrow gauge 2-6-2ST no. 104 steaming out of
Hill City, South Dakota, on the
Black Hills Central Railroad in 2001The gauge
Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes Railroad in Franklin County, Maine, was a major narrow gauge user.
Standard gauge In the United States, the type evolved from the
2-6-0 (Mogul) configuration. The
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (AT&SF) became a pioneer of the type in the United States in 1901 and one of the largest fleet users of the type. Problems the road encountered with the type included steam leakage in the
compound cylinder plumbing and instability at speed. The former problem was solved by converting them to simplex two-cylinder locomotives; the latter problem required new
4-6-2 (Pacific) types with four-wheeled guide trucks. The Prairie types were rebuilt with smaller drivers for slightly slower fast freight service. These engines tended to enjoy very long service lives and outlasted many newer, more efficient steam locomotives on the Santa Fe and elsewhere. This was due to their modest weight, good speed and ability to operate well in reverse, which made them valuable for branch line operations. by
Baldwin In 1902, the AT&SF had a 2-6-2 with a high, at the time, boiler pressure of , mounted on a large fire grate. More than a thousand examples of the 2-6-2 wheel arrangement existed in the United States. Of these, one hundred were high-wheeled engines with larger than drivers. The Lake Shore & Michigan Southern operated locomotives with drivers, but this did not overcome their inherent instability. They were never as successful in passenger service in the U.S. as they were in other nations. ==References==