Why no Berkshires in the West?

[MidlandMike]

CSSHEGEWISCH

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.

The B&A (first RR to own, and name the Berkshires) had 55 of them.  P&LE also had a handful (last steam engines Alco produced)

[De Luxe]

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.

CAZEPHYR

They were built as coal fired and later converted to Oil fired

Interesting info! Can you maybe tell me the exact year when the Santa Fe Berks have been converted from coal to oil burning?

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

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.

[daveklepper]

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.

[AltonFan]

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.

[West Coast S]

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. 

Dave

[NorthWest]

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.    

[CAZEPHYR]

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.

They had 63" drivers.      

AB.

 

[De Luxe]

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.