Shrike,
it would be a funny idea to have a 4-4-0 built in the Super Power era: with (I have to recalculate, but the internet helps) 70000 pounds axle load, 100 inches boiler, wide firebox overhanging the rear 70 inches driver and an eight wheel, no, a twelve wheel box shape tender. Later, one year before austed from service, replaced by a meanwhile superfluous Centipede tender, or one of these ground-scraping PRR sixteen wheels tender.
Serious: in later years, I believe the 4-4-0 would have been regarded as old-fashioned, it would perhaps become a 2-6-0 with driver diameter as fitting and an eight wheel tender.
Maybe someone has made a sketch for contemplation and could post it here?
Sara 05003
Well, if someone else had been willing to build the "Jersey Januses" they would have probably have lasted a lot longer. Not Baldwin's best effort by any means.
Flintlock76Well, that's one of the reasons the Jersey Central held on to the Camelbacks as long as they did.
Now imagine if CNJ had waited a couple of years and built the double-enders with turbo 608As, better electrical and 'other' systems, and Loewy-style noses... all in that original blue and orange style...
OvermodI also suspect the Depression put the kibosh on much "new" construction
Well, that's one of the reasons the Jersey Central held on to the Camelbacks as long as they did.
I don't remember the details, but I believe Baldwin did build some 4-4-0's post WW2 for export to the South American market. Not many, but some.
The latest American 4-4-0 I can recall was circa 1928, and I think it was built for an 'accommodation train' in the South. From Baldwin, and reasonably modern in its construction details, in service that did not require three driving axles or the capability of a larger firebox (the firebox on a 4-4-0 can be quite deep for good radiant uptake and combustion efficiency if you don't need a larger grate than will fit water-shielded between frames and axles...)
My suspicion is that most of the potential market for 'new' 4-4-0s in the United States was squeezed between the evolving motorcar, on the one hand, and the low-cost ability to use older power on the smaller or less-demanding consists that would be appropriate for an American type to pull. It has been mentioned that the advent of steel cars, first steel underframes and then full steel construction, spelled the doom of the unidirectional 4-4-0 in many services (in favor of 4-4-2 and then 4-6-2 on the one hand, and the 4-6-0 on the other, the latter in its turn going to the 4-6-2 as the benefits of deep and wide fireboxes became better understood).
It would be difficult to find an American rationale for a true modern 4-4-0 like the Schools class. Here even lightweight trains would get 4-4-2s, and those just as with glorified-motorcar streamliners would soon require 'upsizing' if they were at all successful enough to warrant the capital. (Something I find interesting to note is that nowhere do we see cost-effective use of 'more smaller trains' as in the proposed late-19th-century high-speed railroad between Philadelphia and New York. Interurbans of course tried that... and we see where it got them, even as early as the '30s; 4-4-0-hauled trains were always going to be labor-intensive if successful enough to command opportunity capital.
I also suspect the Depression put the kibosh on much "new" construction of anything a 4-4-0 would handle until MU-capable road switchers financed with wartime-fueled creditworthiness would make any steam obsolescent.
The Reading D11 class 4-4-0 was built by Baldwin in 1914.
It had a wide Wooten firebox, a combustion chamber, was superheated as built with piston valves and Walschearts valve gear, and was built with a rear cab. It was also the last 4-4-0 built for the Reading, with only ten locomotives built to the design.
The Reading had a number of camelback 4-4-0s, and some of these were rebuilt with superheaters, piston valves and Walschearts valve gear, but none were rebuilt with a rear cab.
Few 4-4-0s were built with modern features like the Reading D11.
Peter
Here's a good place to start.
Guide to North American Steam Locomotives - Revised Edition - Kalmbach Hobby Store
I know that the 4-4-0 went out of vogue right around the turn of the century, but were there any outliers? What were a few of the last classes of these engines built (in NA)? I feel like it's so much easier to do research on British steam - there just seems like there's no centralized source to look up American/Canadian/Mexican stuff :/. Any help is appreciated.
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