I always wondered why there were no Berkshires operating in the West except the 15 Berkshires that were newly built for the Santa Fe and the few Boston & Maine Berkshires the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific purchased second hand from that road. Why was the 2-8-4 wheel arrangement so unpopular in the west?
By the way: Can anyone tell me in which areas on the system Santa Fe´s 1927 built Berkshires operated? I still couldn´t find any information about this on the internet so it would be interesting for me to know wether they operated “only” in the midwest like Illinois, Missourri, Kansas and Oklahoma or out in the “real” west/southwest like Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
The Santa Fe Berkshires ran from Chicago to Kansas City when new and worked this assignment until the late 1948 era according to the books on the SF. They were built as coal fired and later converted to Oil fired and finished out their service on lessor lines in Texas and Oklahoma.
Western railroads had wider curves, and thus they could fit larger locomotives. 2-10-4s and 2-10-2s were common. Also, the loading gauge was larger, so simple articulateds could fit, where they could not many places in the East. Grades also tend to be a bigger factor in the West.
Actually, SP was satisfied with the war baby berks it aquired once the coffin feedwater heater was replaced with the BL system and all were subsquently converted to oil by means of salvaged whale back tenders which permitted operation anywhere on the system.
Another consideration: the Berkshire type came into use in the late 1920s, just as the nation was about to plunge into the Depression. A number of railroads had to put new power on hold. Diesels were also on the rise, and the western sates included a lot of places where the was little water, or the water was unsuitable for steam operations.
The Alton borrowed an ATSF Berk for some tests and began planning to build a fleet of Berks for the line to Kansas City to replace double-headed 2-8-0s. The Depression hit, traffic on the Kansas City line declined, and when WWII ended, the GM&O merged the Alton and commenced dieselization.
also, although many Berkshires were occasionally, but successfully, used in passenger service, it was primarily a freight locomotive.
For a bit more cash, a four-wheel pilot truck, gave the major western railroads the dual sevice 4-8-4. which was better suited to their operational requirements.
Even back east, the C&O had their 4-8-4’s in addition to 2-8-4’s.
I’m not absolutely sure of this, but it appears that once you got beyond the Van Sweringen railroads (NKP, C&O, PM, Erie), Berkshires weren’t that common at all. L&N had 2-8-4’s (M-1’s) but they were pretty much restricted to coal country. C&NW also had Berkshires but they were too heavy for much of the system and were used mostly in coal drags out of central Illinois.
Thanks everybody for your answers. I like this wheel arrangement a lot but now I see that it´s not hard to understand why it wasn´t much needed out in the west.
Interesting info! Can you maybe tell me the exact year when the Santa Fe Berks have been converted from coal to oil burning?
E.D. Worley’s book Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail has photos of AT&SF 2-8-4’s 4101 and 4102 as coal burners at Kansas City in 1949 and 1947 respectively. No. 4110 is shown at Slaton, TX as an oil burner in 1953. Worley says all engines in the class had been converted by 1953. Most were retired in 1954, with 4109 and 4110 lasting until February of 1955.
Worley does not mention conversion of any of the ex-B&M 2-8-4’s to oil firing. The implication is that they were used on Santa Fe’s easternmost lines where coal was the standard fuel. Six of the seven ex-B&M engines were retired in October and November of 1949. The last one, AT&SF number 4197, had been extensively rebuilt at the Topeka Shops in 1947, and lasted until August of 1954.
Other roads gave some consideration to the 2-8-4 wheel arrangement. B&O is said to have worked on plans for a 2-8-4 that would have essentially been a Q-1 or Q-4 2-8-2 with 64" drivers, a larger firebox, and a four wheel trailing truck. Those low drivers and the smallish boiler would possibly have prevented the design from achieving the success of larger purpose-built Berkshires. \
I thought I read somewhere that L&N originally was looking at 4-8-4s, but found they would have had to rebuild too many turntables to accomodate them. So berkshires it was!
It’s my understanding that the P&LE Berks were a failure; the P&LE didn’t want them and they were built rather late. I believe they worked their last miles on the Big Four, where much of the last NYC steam ended up. If you look at them, they didn’t really resemble a Berk seen on other roads and were rather ungainly looking. Victor A. Baird www.erstwhilepublications.com
It may be too much to say the P&LE Berkshires were a failure. But they had small 63" drivers, so they probably didn’t move over the road as quickly as many other Berkshires. I think of them as Mikados with more boiler and firebox than they needed. It’s questionable whether P&LE or anybody else could have found a suitable service for this particular design.
So can we say the quick all-purpose answer is size? If you wanted a high-performance 8-drivered steam loco, your first choice was a 4-8-4. That worked in the West and in some areas of the East. But if you were operating an older Eastern railroad with tight clearances and limited turntable length, you would go for a 2-8-4 or 4-8-2.
Lots of specific exceptions, but it’s a general rule I can live with.
They were very successful but not that large as far as numbers go. The Central Vermont also had a few, the largest and most powerful steam in New England. The PRR had about tenn times the number of plodding 2-10-0 as 2-10-4’s. The C&O also had Berkshires, and about five times the number of 2-8-2’s.
Undoubtadly, without diesilization, there would have been more 2-10-4.
The C. V. 2-10-4’s were indeed the largest steam in New England, but they were still rather small in comparison with other 2-10-4’s. David Morgan, in Steam’s Finest Hour says they were more like elongated 2-10-2’s.
PRR had 598 Decapods and 125 Texas types, so the ratio was more like 4.8 to 1 ---- not 10 to 1. The PRR’s J1/J1a classes comprised the largest 2-10-4 fleet in North America, and possibly in the world.
C&O had 40 T-1 2-10-4’s and loved them. The 60 H-8 Allegheny 2-6-6-6 engines were designed by expanding the 2-10-4 in all dimensions. If they hadn’t done that, it makes sense to imagine that they would have bought more T-1’s. PRR used the same basic design for the J’s.
C&O and PRR were among the few Eastern roads whose clearances allowed such engines as the PRR J’s, C&O T-1’s, and C&O H-8’s.
As for C&O’s Kanawhas, they were used as big and fast utility engines on the C&O. C&O’s 160 (or so) Mikados were placed in classes K-1, K-2, and K-3. The 90 Kanawhas continued in the Mikado tradition and were classed K-4. (Note: there were additional Mikes and Berks acquired with other roads: I’m only including the major native C&O classes here.)
So it still comes down to size and clearances. PRR and C&O were among the few Eastern roads where a big Super Power 2-10-4 would fit.