Model train Question?

Question

I am fairly new at Model Railroading and I was wondering what 2-6-6-2 means when they are referring to a Loco.

Answer 1

It means an articulated locomotive with (starting from front):

2 wheels in pony truck;

6 driving wheels complete with cylinders and valve gear;

another 6 wheels with cylinders and valve gear, with an articulated coupling between;

Another pony truck.

Example: Union Pacific Challenger class

Answer 2

Paul-

The club that I belong to in Sunol, California has just this type of logging locomotive.  

This particular one is manufactured by Baldwin for heavy logging operations, and it is called a Mallet.  Pronounced Mallay, after the person who designed it.

These were a light duty compound steam locomotive, not of the type like a Challenger or Big Boy.  Those are a different breed of the same concept, and Hoghead has it correct for you.

A picture of our locomotive can be seen at:

www.ncry.org

As for the configuration of ours its called a 2-6-6-2T, which means it does not have a tender behind it.

The cab on ours had a large oil tank for holding #3 Bunker Oil, then along either side of the boiler are the water reservior tanks.

This makes the locomotive very compact for its type, but the drawback is the fact its range is very limited.  However, when fully loaded with water and oil, this extra weight does add to additional adhesion, (traction) being delivered to the drivers.

Last I checked, there were a few models out there in HO Scale, and I know for sure that Roco and Mantua both had models of these locos.  Both the T Type like ours, and the standard loco and tender combination.

Ours is currently being fixed with a new smokebox plate and a new crown sheet in the boiler.

Eventhough I am 36 years old, Steam is my thing!  Love it!

Just a recommendation, you should really subscribe to Model Railroader Magazine, and get involved in a Club.  

I went from playing with HO Scale, to playing with 1 to 1 scale.  That would be the real thing!

If you live here in the Bay Area, I invite you to become a part of our membership.  The website I gave you will have all of that information.

Hey Bob!  You forgot the Willamette!!!!!!!

Here is another cool site for you.

www.gearedsteam.com

Good Luck!

Answer 3

that was a steam locomotive number 2 pilot wheels then the drivers and the trailers. the first engines did not have trailers the were numbered  2-4  ,when engines got heavier your configuration started to get bigger 4-6-4- or 4-8-4, . your engine has an articulator which means two sets of driving wheels so your numbers are 2- 6-6-2 or bigger engines 4-8-8-4 made by alco or even a cab foreward southern pacific rail road used them for use in long tunnels so the crew did not have to breathe the smoke. but have fun with the models .if you ever go to any train shows (swap meets) almost anyone there will help you. hope this is some help.

Answer 4

In Whyte notation, 2-6-6-2 refers to a railroad steam locomotive that has two leading wheels followed by six coupled driving wheels, a second set of six coupled driving wheels, and two trailing wheels. This type of locomotive was commonly used in North America on logging railways.

Answer 5

This is probably more than you're looking for, but here's the skinny on steam engine classification...

As far as steam engine classification goes, they were classified in general by the type of design of the locomotive, such as single expansion, compound engine, saturated steam, super-heated, rigid and articulated, with the latter sub-categorized as duplex and triplex.  These engines were further classified by their wheel arrangement, in most cases, of the later engines manufactured.

         If one tries to answer the questions regarding who came up with the idea of a steam engine, or the year the first was built, the point will be argued.   But, in actuality, the answer is not in the 18th or 19th centuries.   The first steam “engine” was conceived by and made by Heron of Alexandria.   It was a simple device, consisting of a hollow sphere that rotated on an axis of pipe, that pipe supplying vapor to the sphere from a container of boiling water underneath.  The sphere was fitted with two exhaust pipes that rotated the ball as would two jets do.   This was more than 2,000 years ago.   Just think.   If the next step of putting this on wheels to perform work or even remaining stationary, the industrial revolution would have happened 1,850 years before it did.   How would our world appear today?

         Since we are speaking only of classification, operation and the details of how they work won’t be covered here in depth.   A “saturated steam” engine, also called a “soaker,” is as its name implies, simple steam under not too high pressure.   As technology increased, the “grate area” of the firebox increased, allowing for more heating area.   Boiler size increased as well.  It was these larger engines that became the super-heated variety.   There were “feed water heaters” that pre-heated the water before it was put into the boiler above the firebox.   As a result, higher steam pressure was achieved, resulting in more power from the expanding steam when put into the cylinders.

        A single expansion engine, also called a “simple” engine, expands the steam in the cylinders and that steam is exhausted through the smoke box and smoke stack.   A compound engine expands the steam twice.   The cylinders are two different sizes, one low pressure and the other high pressure.   Steam is expanded first when fed to the high pressure cylinders, then their exhausted steam is expanded a second time in the low pressure cylinders before being exhausted through the smoke box and stack.  

         In a non-articulated rigid engine, the high and low pressure cylinders are on opposite sides of the engine.   This arrangement is called the “cross compound” engine.  

         In an articulated locomotive, where there are two sets of cylinders and drivers under one boiler, the high and low pressure cylinders run in tandem, with the low pressure cylinders at the front and the high pressure cylinders behind.   The idea came from An atole Mallet (pronounced Mal-lee) and was much more efficient for the use of fuel and water.   As a result, most times articulates are called Mallets, although the first articulates were the only true Mallets, in most cases.   Even so, the system was improved by Mr. Vauclain of the Baldwin Locomotive works, and it was actually his design that resulted in the lion’s share of U.S. built compounds.   By the time of the end of their service life, almost all the compounds were re-built as simple expansion engines.

         But in the end, it was the wheel arrangements that ultimately determined which class a steam locomotive was tagged with.   The earliest days saw many odd wheel arrangements but over time these were improved upon and the result was the most common types of wheel arrangements that defined the age of modern steam locomotives.

        When speaking of the wheel arrangements they are expressed in a series of numbers, the first representing the number of wheels making up the leading or “pony truck,” the number of drivers or powered wheels, and the number of wheels in the trailing truck.   Engines that had neither lead or trailing truck wheels had a “0" in place of a number.   As an example, most engines in yard service had no lead or trailing trucks, usually with six or eight drivers.   One with six drivers then would be an 0-6-0 and with eight an 0-8-0.   these engines were never really given a class designation, beyond “switcher,” aka a “goat,” or a “dockside,” the latter usually being a “tank” engine, carrying its fuel and water with it, as opposed to being in a trailing “tender.”

        Many railroads assigned an engine to a class of their own designation, but the common names of the most common types, with wheel diagrams and names (where multiple names are shown, the most common appears first), are as follows:

Non-articulated:

0-4-4                 OOoo                   Forney    4-coupled

0-6-4                 OOOoo                Forney    6-coupled

2-4-2                 oOOo                   Columbia

2-6-0                 oOOO                  Mogul

2-6-2                 oOOOo                Prairie

2-8-0                 oOOOO               Consolidation

2-8-2                 oOOOOo             Mikado

2-8-4                 oOOOOoo           Berkshire or Kanawha

2-10-0               oOOOOO            Decapod

2-10-2               oOOOOOo          Santa Fe

2-10-4               oOOOOOoo        Texas

4-2-0                 ooO                      Six-wheeler

4-2-2                 ooOo                    Bicycle

4-4-0                 ooOO                   American

4-4-2                 ooOOo                 Atlantic

4-6-0                 ooOOO                Ten-wheeler

4-6-2                 ooOOOo              Pacific

4-6-4                 ooOOOoo            Hudson or Baltic

4-8-0                 ooOOOO             Mastodon

4-8-2                 ooOOOOo           Mountain

4-8-4                 ooOOOOoo         Northern, Niagra, Greenbrier or Dixie

4-10-2               ooOOOOOo        Southern Pacific or Overland

4-12-2               ooOOOOOOo     Union Pacific

Articulated:

2-6-6-6             oOOO OOOooo                    Allegheny

2-8-8-2             oOOOO OOOOo                  Chesapeake

4-6-6-4             ooOOO OOOoo                    Challenger

4-8-8-4             ooOOOO OOOOoo               Big Boy

2-8-8-8-2          oOOOO OOOO OOOOo      Triplex

2-8-8-8-4          oOOOO OOOO OOOOoo    Triplex

         The triplexes were few in number, built by Baldwin Locomotive works, for eastern coal hauling roads, like the Erie.   Cumbersome, nearly impossible to counter balance due to their complexity and as a result, twenty miles per hour was about tops.   But. it could do the twenty miles per hour all day long, up hill and down, dragging 12,000 tons of coal around.

         There five well known types of steam engines that stand in a class all their own:

1.  Ã¢Â€ÂœCamel Back”:     Easily recognizable because the locomotive cab is near the middle of the boiler, where would have been found the engineer and head brakeman.   The fireman was still resigned to his plight however, still positioned at the end of the locomotive behind the fire box.

2.  Ã¢Â€ÂœHeisler”:    These were “geared” locomotives that were used in logging operations.   Equipped with two cylinders ahead of the locomotive cab, one on each side, at a 45 degree angle to the center point underneath the boiler.   The pistons turned a crank which in turn ran a drive shaft that powered the wheels through gear work, much the same way the drive train in your rear wheel drive automobile.   In addition, the pairs of drivers on the two trucks had conventional “side rod” connections between the wheels.   Probably the first Hybrid vehicle, in a sense.

3.  Ã¢Â€ÂœShay”:    These too were gear driven, but the cylinders were mounted vertically in front of the locomotive cab on the engineer’s (right-hand) side.   They typically had either two sets of gear driven drivers or three sets.   These were much larger and heavier than either the Heisler or Climax, up to 80 tons for the three truck variety.   Some survive and still operate at both the Cass Scenic Railway or Roaring Camp and Big Trees Rail Road.

4.  Ã¢Â€ÂœClimax”:    Another geared logging locomotive, but different from the Heisler in that the cylinders were outboard and ahead of the cab, but their 45 degree downward angle was parallel to the engine, front to rear.

5.  Ã¢Â€ÂœCab Forward”:    Unique to the Southern Pacific, the locomotive cab was located at the front of the engine.   With differing wheel arrangements over the years, the first were compounds, although they were re-built to simple engines before being scrapped, with later engines being simple expansion, with the final development of wheel arrangement of 4-8-8-2.   These engines literally ran backwards.   The cab was located to the front so that crews wouldn’t suffocate from the noxious fumes from the engine’s exhaust.