They were close the drivers where 56" in diameter.
Is it just perspective in the photos or are those 48" cylinders larger than the driving wheels to which they are attached??
Virginian 2-10-10-2
Wow 48" is huge. That could be a dinner table.
Modeling the "Fargo Area Rapid Transit" in O scale 3 rail.
I trust that wanswheel or someone like him who knows how to access the original magazine photograph will provide a link to the very informative 'front view' of the low-pressure cylinders, so you can appreciate just how large 48" cylinders with adequately strong construction and lagging could be on standard gauge. In the meantime, here is a brass model in 3/4 view:
The low pressure cylinders on the VGN 800-series 2-10-10-2s were 48 inches in diameter. To my knowledge, they are the largest cylinders in a railroad steam locomotive. They and several other parts had to be removed for shipment to the VGN because of clearance restrictions.
I'd like to add a couple of comments to "Doc's" notes. The Santa Fe had a total of 64 2-6-6-2 compound mallets built in 1910-1911 numbered in the 1100 and 3300 series. Numbers 1157, 1158 and 1159 had jointed boilers , as did numbers 3320 through 3323. All the rest had rigid boilers. Even with 69-inch drivers, they were not intended for passenger service but for freight service across the plains of New Mexico and Texas where they served well until replaced by the 3800 class 2-10-2s. As to the 2-10-10-2s, they were numbered 3000 thru 3009 and worked west from Winslow, Arizona to San Bernardino, California during their very short career. He is incorrect in naming "Santa Fe Big Three" as shown. Truly, the height of Santa Fe steam development was the 1938 4-6-4, 4-8-4 and 2-10-4, but in the environs of Topeka, the terms "Hudson", "Northern" or "Texas" were never spoken.
MrAT&SF
George Henderson, who was responsible for the Triplex design, actually did consider Quadruplex and Quintuplex designs. I'm sure that they would have run out of steam before they even moved their own length.
Dr D SANTA FE AND THE ARTICULATED LOCOMOTIVE Alfred Bruce, Director of Steam Locomotive Engineering at American Locomotive Company ALCO comments that the first Mallet compound articulated engines were constructed in the United States in 1903 and 1904 by ALCO for the Baltimore & Ohio. This was 16 years after the European railroads which developed and used the Mallet compounds in considerable quantity. Baldwin Locomotive Company built its first Mallet compound in 1906 as a 2-6-6-2 for the Great Northern Railway as a road engine. The 2-6-6-2 was by far the most built articulated engine in American railroad history. So popular that it was built until the end of steam locomotive construction in 1949 when C&O 1304 was constructed new by Baldwin. C&O 1304 is currently under restoration by Western Maryland Senic Railroad today. Baldwin followed this design with the 2-8-8-2 for the Southern Pacific in 1909. This was also to prove to be another extremely popular locomotive wheel type. Not to be outdone with these successes and the articulated compound Mallet craze, Baldwin built for the Erie Railroad in 1914 several triplex engines. The infamous 2-8-8-8-2 type 6 cylinder tank locomotives of which only 3 were ever built. --------------- In the midst of this Mallet compound craze in America the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe jumped in with both feet in 1909 with the construction of "Prairie Mallets" from Baldwin of which were two 4-4-6-2 passenger compounds and two 2-8-8-2 helper compounds. Santa Fe touted the long rigid boiler, 73 inch drivered speedsters as the "largest and most powerful passenger locomotives in existance." First numbered ATSF 1300-1301 this was later changed to ATSF 1398-1399. ------------ Santa Fe followed these engines with another unique passenger engine in 1911. These were 2-6-6-2 articulated locomotives that according to Alfred Bruce did not feature low and high pressure cylinders. Other sources record them as all Mallet compounds. It is certain that of the 65 engines constructed a total of 7 locomotives featured a hinged boiler. Santa Fe ordered these passenger articulated speesters with 69 inch drivers. Alfred Bruce considers these flexable boilered Santa Fe 2-6-6-2 as unique because (1) the first use of an outside bearing trailer truck to support a fully wide firebox mounted behind the drivers. (2) the use of the "hinged boiler" in two sections with each section bolted to an articulating frame over which it rode. A flexable "hinged boiler" bellows joined the two units that sealed only firebox flue gas. (3) the actual steam producing boiler was only the 19 foot flue section over the rear engine unit. The front boiler section was instead a large flue gas feedwater heater unit which was built to the full diameter of the rear pressure boiler. This was variously described as "Baldwin feedwater heater and Santa Fe design reheater and superheater" or 'Jacobs superheater" or "combustion chamber - reheater/superheater" This "flexable accordion" boiler section joining the front and rear units did not contain steam pressure - it merely sealed firebox flue gas to the locomotive stack. As such it burst regularly owing to the buildup of cinders which when compressed popped the rivits. A ball socket joint connection was developed and tried. ------------- If all this was not enough, Santa Fe also constructed in their own shops another series of ten articulated Mallet compounds of the 2-10-10-2 wheel type using the railroads existing 2-10-2 locomotives for the high pressure units. Added to these were new Baldwin built 2-10-0 forward frame constructions as the front low pressure locomotive sections. These home built engines were numbered ATSF 1300-1310. -------------------- Finally Santa Fe tempted fate one more time, by considering an over the top construction of a 2-8-8-8-8-2 locomotive. This plan got as far as requesting Baldwin Locomotive Works to draw up plans for the "greatest Mallet of all time" - the QUADRAPLEX DOUBLE COMPOUND! This engine was to feature two cabs one for the fireman and one for the front of the locomotive engineer location. ----------------------- After 1915 Santa Fe became a "rigid frame" steam locomotive railroad and their designs moved forward to what would eventually be the SANTA FE BIG THREE - passenger ATSF 3460 "Hudson" 4-8-4 type - passenger ATSF 2900 "Northern" 4-8-4 type - and freight ATSF 5011 "Texas" 2-10-4 type. Locomotives of superlative quality and construction unequaled throughout the world! --------------------- Gone would be the days of the "Prairie Mallet" and of the whimsical engineering of the past - in the vast steel wheel turning wild wild west! Doc
SANTA FE AND THE ARTICULATED LOCOMOTIVE
Alfred Bruce, Director of Steam Locomotive Engineering at American Locomotive Company ALCO comments that the first Mallet compound articulated engines were constructed in the United States in 1903 and 1904 by ALCO for the Baltimore & Ohio. This was 16 years after the European railroads which developed and used the Mallet compounds in considerable quantity.
Baldwin Locomotive Company built its first Mallet compound in 1906 as a 2-6-6-2 for the Great Northern Railway as a road engine. The 2-6-6-2 was by far the most built articulated engine in American railroad history. So popular that it was built until the end of steam locomotive construction in 1949 when C&O 1304 was constructed new by Baldwin. C&O 1304 is currently under restoration by Western Maryland Senic Railroad today.
Baldwin followed this design with the 2-8-8-2 for the Southern Pacific in 1909. This was also to prove to be another extremely popular locomotive wheel type. Not to be outdone with these successes and the articulated compound Mallet craze, Baldwin built for the Erie Railroad in 1914 several triplex engines. The infamous 2-8-8-8-2 type 6 cylinder tank locomotives of which only 3 were ever built.
---------------
In the midst of this Mallet compound craze in America the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe jumped in with both feet in 1909 with the construction of "Prairie Mallets" from Baldwin of which were two 4-4-6-2 passenger compounds and two 2-8-8-2 helper compounds. Santa Fe touted the long rigid boiler, 73 inch drivered speedsters as the "largest and most powerful passenger locomotives in existance." First numbered ATSF 1300-1301 this was later changed to ATSF 1398-1399.
------------
Santa Fe followed these engines with another unique passenger engine in 1911. These were 2-6-6-2 articulated locomotives that according to Alfred Bruce did not feature low and high pressure cylinders. Other sources record them as all Mallet compounds. It is certain that of the 65 engines constructed a total of 7 locomotives featured a hinged boiler. Santa Fe ordered these passenger articulated speesters with 69 inch drivers.
Alfred Bruce considers these flexable boilered Santa Fe 2-6-6-2 as unique because (1) the first use of an outside bearing trailer truck to support a fully wide firebox mounted behind the drivers. (2) the use of the "hinged boiler" in two sections with each section bolted to an articulating frame over which it rode. A flexable "hinged boiler" bellows joined the two units that sealed only firebox flue gas. (3) the actual steam producing boiler was only the 19 foot flue section over the rear engine unit. The front boiler section was instead a large flue gas feedwater heater unit which was built to the full diameter of the rear pressure boiler. This was variously described as "Baldwin feedwater heater and Santa Fe design reheater and superheater" or 'Jacobs superheater" or "combustion chamber - reheater/superheater"
This "flexable accordion" boiler section joining the front and rear units did not contain steam pressure - it merely sealed firebox flue gas to the locomotive stack. As such it burst regularly owing to the buildup of cinders which when compressed popped the rivits. A ball socket joint connection was developed and tried.
-------------
If all this was not enough, Santa Fe also constructed in their own shops another series of ten articulated Mallet compounds of the 2-10-10-2 wheel type using the railroads existing 2-10-2 locomotives for the high pressure units. Added to these were new Baldwin built 2-10-0 forward frame constructions as the front low pressure locomotive sections. These home built engines were numbered ATSF 1300-1310.
--------------------
Finally Santa Fe tempted fate one more time, by considering an over the top construction of a 2-8-8-8-8-2 locomotive. This plan got as far as requesting Baldwin Locomotive Works to draw up plans for the "greatest Mallet of all time" - the QUADRAPLEX DOUBLE COMPOUND! This engine was to feature two cabs one for the fireman and one for the front of the locomotive engineer location.
-----------------------
After 1915 Santa Fe became a "rigid frame" steam locomotive railroad and their designs moved forward to what would eventually be the SANTA FE BIG THREE - passenger ATSF 3460 "Hudson" 4-8-4 type - passenger ATSF 2900 "Northern" 4-8-4 type - and freight ATSF 5011 "Texas" 2-10-4 type. Locomotives of superlative quality and construction unequaled throughout the world!
---------------------
Gone would be the days of the "Prairie Mallet" and of the whimsical engineering of the past - in the vast steel wheel turning wild wild west!
Doc
someone a few months ago acquired a 2-10-10-2 brass ho model ,it was sweeeet im gonna look on FB ho pages &see if i can flush him out
We have to remember this was before they really understood the power of the large firebox...
The size of the 2-10-10-2 firebox is miniscule even compared to the later Santa Fe 2-10-2 firebox...
RME I don't even think there's much of a market in specialty brass for one of these things. Here is a page showing the Westside brass model and you can guess how long it's been without a reissue...
I don't even think there's much of a market in specialty brass for one of these things. Here is a page showing the Westside brass model and you can guess how long it's been without a reissue...
The brass model as much as shows what was wrong with the prototype and why it didn't steam right. To say a locomotive is ugly is not a technical argument, but it perhaps reflects an intuition that the proportions are out of whack.
There are certain rules steam locomotive designers came up with regarding relative proportions of the grate, firebox, tubes, and firebox sections of the boiler. If that model does one thing, it gives one a better sense of those proportions than the few extant photographs. The model proportions suggest that this locomotive was just "thrown" together without taking those design rules into account.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
AC, I really admire you as a sorce of solid information!
The Santa Fe 2-10-10-2 was produced as a limited production HO brass model some time around the 1970's. I understand it could get around curves in one direction ony because the piping got in the way. I don't know what the minimum radius was. The prototype engines were impractical, short-lived, used in very limited territory, and pretty ugly in the opinion of most observers. With all of those things going against them, it's not likely that any manufacturer will produce a model nowadays.
Tom
ATSFGuyHave any 2-10-10-2 Steam Locomotives been redone and released in plastic yet?
Lord, no! How many of them do you think you would sell?
Even ATSF didn't keep them long (recognizing that as with the 'added motor units' from Baldwin, the articulated chassis could be much better used under its own separate boiler -- the firebox on the 2-10-10-2s was barely adequate even for the 2-10-2 directly, tandem compound water-rate saving or not).
Is there a market in plastic for an early-20th-Century heavy locomotive with weird firebox that can't be run effectively on almost any layout? I think the right answer would have to be to publish Shapeways files that would let interested modelers make originals to rework for epoxy resin castings -- or see if one of the boutique makers like Dave Grover's Eddystone would do the basic work for you.
Yes, I'd like to see someone make these in a cost-effective form. No, I don't think anyone making these would sell them at any approximation of a cost-effective cost. Nor do I think you'd get enough reservations to convince any for-profit manufacturer to invest the time and money to make a production quantity.
Have any 2-10-10-2 Steam Locomotives been redone and released in plastic yet?
Lack of a location or willing recipient was a factor in many cases, but it sure doesn't explain the B&O Railroad's major miscommunication when it scrapped the last EM-1 2-8-8-4 after promising it to ITS OWN MUSEUM!
Sad but true!
kgbw49 There are so many "what if" and "why didn't they" situations. Why didn't SP preserve 4-8-4 4458 or 4459 - the roller-bearing-equipped units - say one in LA and one in Oakland or Fresno? Why didn't UP preserve a 4-8-4 in Southern CA, or another Challenger? Why didn't NP preserve an A-4 or A-5 4-8-4 in Minneapolis? What if NYC had preserved one each of their "Big Three" - a J3a Hudson, an L4b Mohawk and a Niagara? What if GN had preserved an R-2 2-8-8-2, or Southern a couple more PS-4 Pacifics, or MILW an F-7 4-6-4 Baltic or CNW a 4-8-4 Zeppelin? What if IC had preserved 4-8-2 2613? I am sure everyone can add to the list. The sad thing is saving those locomotives would not even have moved the needle on the carrier's bottom line in the year they were scrapped. Thankfully UP 9000 is around in Southern CA and SP 4460 is around in St. Louis and many others are out there, far from home rails but at least still around. But indeed - What if????
There are so many "what if" and "why didn't they" situations.
Why didn't SP preserve 4-8-4 4458 or 4459 - the roller-bearing-equipped units - say one in LA and one in Oakland or Fresno?
Why didn't UP preserve a 4-8-4 in Southern CA, or another Challenger?
Why didn't NP preserve an A-4 or A-5 4-8-4 in Minneapolis?
What if NYC had preserved one each of their "Big Three" - a J3a Hudson, an L4b Mohawk and a Niagara?
What if GN had preserved an R-2 2-8-8-2, or Southern a couple more PS-4 Pacifics, or MILW an F-7 4-6-4 Baltic or CNW a 4-8-4 Zeppelin?
What if IC had preserved 4-8-2 2613?
I am sure everyone can add to the list.
The sad thing is saving those locomotives would not even have moved the needle on the carrier's bottom line in the year they were scrapped.
Thankfully UP 9000 is around in Southern CA and SP 4460 is around in St. Louis and many others are out there, far from home rails but at least still around.
But indeed - What if????
I suspect the bigger reason locomotives weren't saved in the locations you named is that there was very little if any civic desire in those communities to provide locations for them to be preserved. Saving locomotives requires the cooperation of both the carriers and the communities.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I never understood why 9000 was sent to California for preservation, since the class never operated there in regular service. It has always seemed that an oil burner such as 5511, and/or an oil burning Challenger or 4-8-4 would be more appropriate, since they did commonly operate in California. Wouldn't the 9000 be more appropriately displayed in Cheyenne, or nearby?
MrATSF, thank you, thank you, thank you for your efforts! In a past life living in Southern CA I had the opportunity to visit the Fairplex and see 5021 and 9000, and they were both great examples of "bigger, better, faster" and the "can do" American spirit. Just great locomotives!
MrATSF Today you can visit this exhibit at FAIRPLEX and see two of the only remaining three-cylinder, rigid frame steam locomotives in the United States.
Great information and stories, thanks! But those two are not the only US-built 3-cylinder locomotives left. Two more survived, the A&S 0-8-0 in St. Louis and the 4-10-2 Baldwin demonstrator in the Franklin Institute.
Just a minor clarification about SP 5021 as I was involved with its acquisition and placement in the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in 1956. The Southern California Chapter of the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society realizing that it was the last of the three-cylinder 4-10-2s, put in a request to the Southern Pacific for the opportunity to preserve 5021. SP management knew we already had three small locomotives and Santa Fe 4-6-4 3450 in our exhibit, so they agreed to donate the 5021. It was at that time in service on the Portland division, and shortly before its flues were to expire, SP ran it as a light engine move to Los Angeles in December 1955. It was stored at Taylor roundhouse for a short period before going into Los Angeles General Shops where it was given a first class cleaning and painting, with chrome in many areas not normally seen. The locomotive was moved dead over the SP to Bassett and then a Pacific Electric spur into the fairgrounds to the exhibit. A presentation ceremony was made in the spring of 1956. Thousands of fairgoers come through the Chapter exhibit, and Union Paciific 4-12-2 was added in May of 1956. The truly amazing thing about the UP 9000 is, that through the efforts of the late Allen Krieg, Chapter Director and UP Public Relations Manager, The 9000, a coal burner, came from Cheyenne to Los Angeles under is own power!
Today you can visit this exhibit at FAIRPLEX and see two of the only remaining three-cylinder, rigid frame steam locomotives in the United States.
Those tenders look so tiny, especially on the Virginian.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
CSSHEGEWISCHRegarding the size of the low-pressure cylinders on the VGN 2-10-10-2's: they were so large that they had to be loaded on separate flat cars when the locomotives were shipped from the builder since they would otherwise exceed clearances on the various connecting roads.
Description and some good pictures of the Virginian locomotives are available here (starting on p.166); the book is available as a 'free download' in the United States from Google Books if you want a copy. Note the head-on picture that shows the cylinder diameter to particular advantage -- shades of unitary machinery support!
Regarding the size of the low-pressure cylinders on the VGN 2-10-10-2's: they were so large that they had to be loaded on separate flat cars when the locomotives were shipped for the builder since they would otherwise exceed clearances on the various connecting roads.
Broadside view of ATSF 2-10-10-2...
Virginian 2-10-10-2 for comparison - these had much longer lives than the ATSF units...
Virginian 2-10-10-2 on freight - while all compound articulateds had large front cylinders, these seem to be even larger than on something like the N&W Y6b...
A pair of 2-10-10-2s in helper service...
A grainy shot that shows the large front cylinders...
N&W Y6a for comparison...
Y6b...
Y5 in the company notch...
An SP mechanical officer described maintenance costs for the three cylinder engines "is like having an expensive mistress at every Division point."
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