4-6-0 Totally Explained

Everything about 4-6-0 totally explained

In the Whyte notation, a 4-6-0 is a railroad steam locomotive that has a two-axle leading truck followed by three driving axles. This wheel arrangement became the second-most popular configuration for new steam locomotives in America in the mid-19th century. In the United States this type is commonly called a Ten-wheeler.
Other equivalent classifications are:
UIC classification: 2C (also known as German classification and Italian classification)
French classification: 230
Turkish classification: 35
Swiss classification: 3/5

United States

Chesapeake. It was built by Norris in March 1847 for the Philadelphia and Reading railroad. There is still a question as to who was the original designer of this type. Many authorities attribute the design to Septimus Norris, but in a paper written in 1885, George E. Sellers attributes the design to John Brandt.
   Brandt worked for the Erie Railway between 1842 and 1851. The Erie's own management didn't feel it in their best interests to pursue construction, so Brandt showed the design to Baldwin and Norris. Baldwin was similarly unimpressed, but Norris liked the idea. According to Sellers, James Millholland, of the Reading, saw the 4-6-0 design as well and ordered one from Norris for the Reading. However, Sellers may have misrecalled a few of the specifics as Millholland didn't work for the Reading until 1848, a year later. Also, Sellers lists the first 4-6-0 constructed as the Susquehanna, which was the Erie railroad's first 4-6-0.
   The attribution to Septimus Norris lies in a patent that many sources cite for this locomotive type that was filed in 1846. However, such a patent hasn't yet been found in searches at the USPTO. Septimus Norris did file a patent in 1854 for running gears, and the patent application showed a 4-6-0 in the drawing. Norris' wording in the 1854 patent was vague in regard to the 4-6-0 wheel arrangement; the filing didn't specifically claim invention of the 4-6-0 type. A few days after William Norris completed the Chesapeake, Hinkley completed their first 4-6-0, the New Hampshire for the Boston and Maine Railroad. The first 4-6-0 from Rogers was the previously mentioned Susquehanna for the Erie Railroad.
   Baldwin's first 4-6-0 didn't appear until 1852. Through the 1860s and into the 1870s, demand for the 4-6-0 grew as more railroad executives switched from purchasing a single, general-purpose type of locomotive (at that time, the 4-4-0), to purchasing locomotives for specific purposes. Both the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Baltimore and Ohio were early adopters of the 4-6-0, using them for fast freight and heavy passenger trains.

United Kingdom

The first 4-6-0 to be introduced to Britain was the Highland Railway Jones Goods Class in 1894, but the type later mostly found use as mixed traffic and passenger locomotives, British freight trains being generally too slow to require a four-wheel leading truck.

Further Information

Get more info on '4-6-0'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://4-6-0.totallyexplained.com">4-6-0 Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.