I was asking you were any Great Northern Mallets were systemwide locomotives. Did any GN Mallets went to say Portland,Oregon.
The GN used their Mallets where they would do the most good. For the most part that meant the Cascade and Rocky Mountains, the Missabi ore trains or steep branch lines like to Butte MT.
The excellent book “Steam Locomotives of the Great Northern Railway”, which I think is still available from the GNRHS Company Store, has a cover painting of R-2 2043 headed for Interbay on the Seattle waterfront north of King Street Station. The painting is based on a Warren McGee photo. I take that as proof that the R class, which were simple articulated engines NOT mallets, worked to Portland, at least for a while, probably after the diesels displaced them from the Rocky Mountains, which was their intended and initial service.
The worst grades on the GN were over the Cascade Mountains between Skykomish on the west and Leavenworth on the east. The crossing involved about 20 miles of 2.2% ascending grade in both directions. GN was very early (1906) user of the 2-6-6-2 mallet, class L-1. They were slow, riding on 55" drivers, and were initially used as pushers on the mountain. A consolidation plus an L-1 could take 1300 tons up the grade compared with the previous standard of two consolidations and 1050 tons with no increase in fuel and water consumption. The GN soon bought more to run one as road engine and one as pusher with trains of 1600 tons.
In 1907 the GN introduced the lighter L-2 class for use as a road engine between Leavenworth and Spokane, a route with long 1% grades in both directions. A second order was deployed between Whitefish and Cut Bank, which included the crossing of the Rocky Mountains at 1.8% eastward and 1% westward. Pushers were used on the 1.8% from Essex to Summit .
The GN was a late adopter of the Mikado 2-8-2, buying the first in 1911 and continuing thru 1920. The GN liked the power, speed and simplicity of the 2-8-2 and converted all of the class L engines to class O-5 and O-6 Mikados between 1921 and 1926.
In
N-3 2-8-8-0…
R-1 2-8-8-2…
R-2 2-8-8-2…
The N-3’s spent time on the Great Northern California line.
Ed
Do you know which shops they were built at? Was it Hillyard?
Hillyard Shops…
Here is a photo of GN R-1 2-8-8-2 2037 at Hillyard Shops with some of the men that constructed it…
GN N-3 2-8-8-0 2012 at Hillyard Shops…
GN S-14 -8-4 2555 at Hillyard Shops…not built at Hillyard Shops, but by Baldwin…
In the top photo of the 2-8-8-0, what is that big ‘box’ sitting on the leading truck?
My understanding is that it held sand for the lead engine. If you look to the top of the boiler you can see a sandbox with a line leading down to the rear engine. The box on the pilot deck fed sand to the front drivers.
To follow up with a comment on the original post of this thread, I have seen photos of N-3 2-8-8-0 locomotives on merchandise freight in a yard in Minneapolis and on the Inside Gateway in California.
And famous Trains Editor David P. Morgan has a famous article including pictures of an R-2 2-8-8-2 hauling a long string of boxcars carrying grain across North Dakota late in the steam era.
It is too bad that an N-3 and R-2 were not preserved.
I don’t know, maybe they’re just out of the shops, but look at how that N-3 and S-1 just glisten! Almost like you could eat off the running boards!
That’s a good indication to me there was a lot of pride on that 'road!
Beautiful machines!
One little observation: the photos serve as a reminder that Belpaire fireboxes were not unique to PRR. I believe that GN was the only other major road to have them on their power.
[:P]
Here is a photo of an R-2 2-8-8-2 late in the steam era at Minot ND after it had been displaced from mountainous terrain. (I was unable to locate a citation of the photographer):
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BTW, since the Belpaire firebox is a GN trademark, GN is the FIRST railroad to use it
No. It was designed by a Belgian and first used in the US by a road associated with the Pennsy.
You are mistaken.
I would suspect that the Great Northern N-3 2-8-8-0 units, R-1 2-8-8-2 units and R-2 2-8-8-2 units were the largest locomotives ever equipped with Belpaire fireboxes.
The Great Northern S-1 4-8-4 units were also Belpaire-equipped, which likely makes them the only 4-8-4 locomotives to be so equipped.
What are the theoretical benefits and drawbacks between the Belpaire firebox and the standard firebox?
Benefits: more standardized staybolt length; better transition of evolving steam from the legs to the space over the crown; somewhat easier layout and construction.
Drawbacks: somewhat heavier; not well suited to be ‘mated’ to a cylindrical boiler; sharper radii in plate bending; more expensive.