Pre Civil War Steam Locomitive

[vsmith]

The British appreciated early on the need for widest possible radients on the curves and for the levelest possible ROW's resulting in very fast service, in the 1880's the AVERAGE speed of the Great Western Railway was about 69mph!

American trains were hillbilly by comparison. Between 1820 and 1840 the king of the road was the 4-2-0 type, (Examples: Balwdin built B&O Lafeyette and the C&NW Pioneer) the pivoting suspension equipped front truck allowed the locomotive to track far easier thru rough railwork and the larger rear drive wheel still gave good traction. These type of engines fell into two types, with the drivewheel in front of the firebox for better traction (freight engines), or behind the firebox for a more stable ride (passenger engines). Some of the 4-2-0 Crampton design had huge drivers and could reach very high speeds. The next most common wheel araingment was the 2-2-2 (example: Camden & Amboy Pioneer) althought the fixed front wheel often had difficulty with the bad track standards common of the time. The classic 4-4-0 American wheel arraingment began in the late 1830's when it became apparent that instead of putting the driver in front of or behind the firebox, two wheels coupled together could be fitted. this allowed for larger boilers, greater traction, greater speed, and the rest they say is history. By the 1850's they were the single most common engine on American railroads.

[daveklepper]

Possibly the use of parallel instead of staggered joints helped.

[dknelson]

There were some fairly high drivered 0-6-0s in British passenger service. This is pure speculation but perhaps they could take curves well due to the British use of bullhead profile rail, more rounded at the top -- not as rounded as Lionel toy train rail but more like that then flat headed.
And of course the quality of Briti***rackwork, both prototype and model railroad, is legendary.
Dave Nelson

[daveklepper]

The small drivered 0-6-0's in England could take the curves easily because of small wheelbase and low speeds on the freight trains, all four-wheel cars. The 0-6-0's were not generally used in passenger service if my memory is correct.

[samfp1943]

These pre Civil War Locos are really something to see, back in the 1960's THe Southern Railway campaigned a copy of the Best Friend of Charleston around the south. It was in Memphis for the rededication of the original Memphis and Charleston Depot there.. They transported it about on its own rail car...It was fully operable. The ride was smooth on mainline rails of modern vintage then, but with the short wheelbase coaches and loco, there was the potential on poor rails to be very rough.. Is this possibly the loco on display mentioned above, in Charleston, S.C.?
It was in that same time frame[1960's] that the L&N brought the locomotive [The General} to Memphis for Cotton Carnival..THe last trip there was a payoff to those that had participated as docents on the train [1 Jim Crow Coach].. We left Central Station north bound in the IC main, we really rolled don the hill, and just about the time we were to go past the area of the Poplar St. yard, an IC switcher pulled out on to the main line..by the time the General stopped we were within 20 feet of the switcher..everyone was puckered up... the rest of the tour around Memphis was uneventful after that.. That 4-4-0 did a fine job of stopping.

[Tim Burton]

How was it that Britain could have so many 0-6-0s? I thought at curves they tended to derail?

[dknelson]

For fascinating photos of some weird and wonderful old pre Civil War locomotives I recommend the book "A Locomotive Engineer's Album" by George Abdill. I think it is out of print but I have seen it at public libraries and at swap meets. 4-2-0s, 2-2-0s, 6-2-0s, all sorts of outlandish stuff.
Dave Nelson

[mersenne6]

John White - A History of the American Locomotive its Development 1830 - 1880 has a great deal of information about the development of the early engines. His book covers all of the types you mentioned and more. I'd recommend getting a copy from the library and looking it over.

[Tulyar15]

I believe the first loco to run in the USA was the "Stourbridge Lion" built in Stourbridge, England and identical to the locos then in use on the Earl of Dudley's railway which connected his coal mines with the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal. An identical loco "Agenoria" is on display in the National Railway Museum, York.

The oldest loco in Britain that's still capable of running is the 0-4-2 "Lion" built for the Liverpool and Manchester railway in 1838 though she's currently got no boiler certificate and so would need to be overhauled, having last run in the 1990's. Back in 1952 she was the star of the comedy movie "The Titfield Thunderbolt".

[BR60103]

Also look at the "Best Friend of Charleston" replica in Charleston, SC. This is a vertical boiler loco. I've never seen an HO model of one of these.
The commonest early loco models are Bachmann's DeWitt Clinton and John Bull. The other ones that get modelled are Stephenson's Rocket and Germany's Der Adler.

[spbed]

Yes History Channel had a show on the other day of two 2 2-2 which they said appeared to have been built in 1855 or so & are now down under in 90' of water east of Long Brach NJ[:p][:p]

Originally posted by bobwilcox
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Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR  Austin TX Sub

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