Did either of these roads have articulated's ? If not, can you tell me the reason ?
http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/photos/cpr_steam/decapod.htm
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Articulateds (or, more specifically, Mallet-style semiarticulateds) do provide advantages over any rigid frame loco with the same number and size of drivers. Note that the largest practical rigid-frame loco was a 4-12-2, and that it required lateral-motion devices on several axles to allow it to round the curves where it was used. (The Russian 4-14-4 was a one-off disaster.) The equivalent articulated, a 2-6-6-2, was considered small. Most US-operated articulateds were x-8-8-x types, equivalent to having two eight-coupled locos under the control of a single crew.
Articulateds, especially Mallet-compounds, also have disadvantages - complexity, low drivers (low speed and hard on the track) sometimes too much locomotive for the assigned train (N&W Y6 pulling fewer cars than it had drivers...) Early articulateds were not universally successful, to the extent that ATSF soured on the type, rebuilt all it had to conventional locomotives and only used ex-N&W Y3s during WWII because they couldn't get anything else out of the WPB. And, just as soon as wartime traffic slacked off, they dumped the Y3s on the Virginian.
Canada being a country of long distances, the CN and CP management may have decided that early Mallets were just too slow. Then the later, faster simple articulateds developed south of the 49th parallel simply didn't interest them. We would like to think that all management decisions are rational, made after considering all the evidence. That isn't always the case.
Japan was similar. Early in the history of the Imperial Government Railway they had a few Mallets (Kraus-Maffei 0-4-4-0 and Alco 2-4-4-2.) Both were lightweights, with less tractive effort than 2-8-0 types already in service. All later imports, and all 'built in Japan' steamers, were rigid frame, mostly x-8-x. Only a handful of ten-coupled steamers were ever built for the IGR and later JNR.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with articulateds that never ran there)
We had a discussion on this at http://cs.trains.com/ctr/f/3/t/221678.aspx?sort=ASC&pi386=1