It is all one rigid frame, a 4-6-4T. CN had a fleet of 6 such locomotives, used mostly in Montreal commuter service. Total length was 50’-2", 63" drivers. The rather limited coal and water capacity was not a problem since the runs were short. The advantage of the design was that they were bi-directional, hence just ran around the train with no need to put in a turntable or wye at the termini. Three of the six have survived, yet another example of how often the unusual gets over-represented in preservation:
46 at Vallee Jonction, in south eastern Quebec
47 At Steamtown, Pennsylvania
49 at ExpoRail, just outside Montreal
The bi-directional capability would make them ideal for a tourist operation; decades ago someone had told me Steamtown at Bellows Falls had wanted to put the 47 in service but some missing documentation on the boiler’s history made it too difficult. Just to confuse the issue, another CN locomotive that went stateside was an 0-6-0, 7470. In its new home the number was shortened by dropping the first and last digit, making it also 47. The original number has since been restored.
Click on link and then on thumbnail for the B&A # 306, class D2a tank engine. MOst likely this style of engine was used in a commuter style service due to a limited range of it coal and water supply as a tank style locomotive.
I am nowhere near versed on NYC’s motive power, but will try to help…No idea of quantities of tank engines rostered, but the thumbnails list a couple of other classes of tank style engines… In the thumbnail directory on the web site in the previous thread… Click on K&M 9501 ( subsidieary of NYC; Kanawaha & Michicigan < a coal hauling railroad> in West Virginia) it is a 2-8-2 Class HXa locomotive)
The information on the D1a lists another class of tank engines as a 2-8-2T and that the D2a’s were rebuilt from2-6-6T’s into 2-8-2Ts. You can pretty well bet these engines were confined to commuter services in the New York City and Easter New York State areas. AS to quantities, I have no idea as to how many, but most likely around that area mentioned there were a lot of them.
PS. Click on the thumbnails of the locomotives in the previous link to NYC locomotives and you’ll get an enlarged photo and a brief description about each. Hope this will help you out… By the way, Krokodil, are you stateside or in Germany. Years ago I had a Merklin model of a Krokodil,German electric locomotive… Just curious![:-^]
I was actually not looking for the small tank locomotives, rather I am searching for the big or bigger ones, for main line operation in the suburb services.
Somebody is telling me, that there very many in service (like in Europe) however I could find only sporadically some engines of such types (excluding the switchers with 2-3 axles), and except those switchers and the class #47 not many other are in the list of preserved locomotives. (They would be ideal for touristic railways)
thank you for your help. I am studying the sources - very interesting.
To the Krokodil - this my favorite electric lokomotive originated to Austria (ÖBB 1089) and I constructed the model in scale 1 (1:32) from scratch and together with my friends we have built 5 pieces.
In other side I prefer steam locomotives (I constructed and build several models - close to 30 in 3 different scales), and I have a big collection of model Shays in H0.
Maybe they cast the rear section of the frame separately and bolted it on the the loco bed during the erection process. May have saved time and money by not making a completely unique loco bed casting for a few engines. The same way some unibody automobiles had a front or rear frame assembly attached to the body.
A tank engine is any small engine which carries it’s own fuel and water in an attached part of the locomotive, but not a separate tender. This unit has the “tender” built onto the back of the cab.
I was looking for some other information and stumbled upon this web site. You asked for some information on large tanks…I hope this will satisfy that.
There were not many at all, of 0-12-0T’s un-articulated locos in America. BUT, obviously, there were some whoppers built and used in Europe; as evidenced by the photos in the above link. Union Pacific did operate a fleet of 4-12-2’ s out West.( see kinks for specs on these engines).
I found the link very interesting. I did not realize that the Union Pacific’s were operated in Oregon; I had thought the line curvature was too great. When the 9000 was taken down to Los Angeles, it was moved very, very carefully around some of the curves on the LA&SL, according to an item in Trains at the time. How many of the drivers are flangeless?
In the book “Montreal Railway Terminals” there is a short paragraph of commuter trains working out of Montreal CPR Windsor Station…
“Suburban service began in 1893 between Montreal and Point Fortune, along the Ottawa River at the Quebec-Ontario border. The CP built a special purpose locomotive for the suburban service: it being a 4-6-4T steam locomotive number 624”
Until the time of reading this small book a few weeks ago, I was unaware of CPR having any tank locomotives. The commuter line between Dorval (just outside Montreal) had parallel CN and CP trackage and this was a race track for CN and CP engineers between Dorval & Ste Anne de Bellevue.