Quoting compound engines in simple and compound was a very common practice. Most if not all had provision for simple starting to get a train moving, and I believe most could be dropped back to simple if the conditions warranted it. The big advantage of the N&W "booster" valve was that the engineer could add hot, superheated steam into the compound mode without actually changing to simple.

It's interesting you bring up how these engines were a throwback to 1911--and it's true.

The story is that after the C&O went to large simple 2-8-8-2s on the main line, it found its H-3, H-4, H-5 (USRA engines) and earlier H-6 2-6-6-2s to be mighty handy on the coal branches--plenty of power in the right speed range, economical operation, and a rigid wheelbase of only 10 feet. It was a handy locomotive for a railroad that might have a branch originate a 100-car coal train!

By the 1940s, a lot of the older 2-6-6-2s were wearing out. The road, which had been flush with cash thanks to hauling all that coal, decided to replace the older engines in kind, and ordered 15 new H-6 engines. Apparently the older locomotives ran well enough, or the service wasn't remunerative enough, to justify a new design for this secondary service.

Mine strikes and other things caused the road to reduce the order to 10 engines, and then to go to diesels. As a result, No. 1309 would be Baldwin's last domestic steamer.

Yes, it is ironic that that last engine from Baldwin would be a 1911 design, with a lot of details from then, too. At the same time, though, there are some modern touches--those overfire jets on the firebox to cut down on smoke (will we hear how loud they supposedly were?), and the air tanks are welded.

http://www.cohs.org/history/steamroster.shtml

Lead engine is an early H-6 from the 1920s; second engine is an H-4. Primary difference is slide valves on the low pressure engine of the H-4, vs. spool or piston valves on the H-6:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3143930

Some other photos, revealing a couple of tender variations:

http://www.cohs.org/repository/Archives ... s-1293.jpg

http://www.cohs.org/repository/Archives ... s-1697.jpg

If the dimensions and some other details are any indication, the C&O H-class 2-6-6-2 was apparently copied by a number of other roads, among them the N&W, the BR&P (later B&O), and Verde Smelter Company, which had two that wound up on the SP. These other locomotives, with air compressors on the left side as shown here, looked like the C&O engines before the road went to "flying pumps" in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/steam ... l_agur.jpg

C&O's own H-3s, built to C&O specifications for Hocking Valley, never did get the front mounted pumps:

http://www.cohs.org/repository/Archives ... s-3197.jpg

http://www.cohs.org/repository/Archives ... -38629.jpg

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3580420

An early (1920s) H-6 as built; note that the air compressors are NOT on the front:

http://www.cohs.org/repository/Archives ... -31273.jpg

The late Al Staufer once commented that some locomotives looked inherently well balanced. Most would agree with his choices of typical 4-4-0s and NYC Hudsons, but he included C&O 2-6-6-2s as well; of course, they never would have main line glamour, but they did bring that "balance" to their branch runs and mine shifters in West Virginia and Kentucky.

"....The need for the locomotives was, again, in the transport of heavy coal trains. Due to the late era in which they were built the compounds featured some of the newest technologies available such as roller bearings and upgraded lubrication systems. The latest H-6's were modeled from the earlier H-6's and also pulled from the H-3 and H-4 designs. As a result they offered similar tractive efforts, weight, wheelbase, and driver sizes among other features. Initially, the C&O placed an order of 25 2-6-6-2s but would amend this to just ten, #1300-1309, following coal strikes in 1949 that saw production drop significantly and the need for more power was no longer needed. When outshopped that year #1309 earned the distinction as being Baldwin's last steam locomotive commercially produced for a U.S. railroad."

We'll find out soon enough about rollers...

Here is a clip from the old days of some 2-6-6-2s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbHRk6kzWT8

I'll take 1309 running in any shape and color, but it will be interesting to see if WMSR, as they have done with their Consol, give it a WMRR look and feel.



Bob

Not to be one of those nitpickers, but:
Verde TUNNEL & Smelter, operating between Clarkdale (present-day Verde Canyon RR terminus) and Jerome (WAY uphill).
http://www.steamlocomotive.com/2-6-6-2/?page=vts

It is interesting to note that if the railroad had received all 25 of the 2-6-6-2's, one of them would have carried the number 1313. I know that the Missabe had a Mike with this "double 13" number (ex-EJ&E) on its roster, but wonder how many other roads did. Knowing that railroaders tended to be superstitious, I would have thought that the undelivered 1313 might not have been looked on in favor by C&O engine crews.

Les

I can tell you from the experience of having had CSX AC6000 #666 as part of a consist a couple of times that you would be correct about superstition among some railroaders. There was usually some kind of vandalism of the number on the inside of that unit.

Don't worry, you'll get no complaints from me (not that you'd worry about anything I'd say anyway!) :-)



Actually, C&O did have a 1313 before, one of the H-2 class, part of the first order of "production" 2-6-6-2s, delivered in 1911 following the delivery and testing of prototype 1301 (which, if I am remembering right, was delivered as the 701, 1301 being a later renumbering).

A bit about those early 2-6-6-2s--supposedly those monsters were hand fired initially. People who've done it say the 4501 was a handful to fire; can you imagine muzzle-loading one of these?



I sometimes wonder if we've gone backwards in the superstition department. The T&P had a 2-10-4 numbered 666; its crews called it "Old Chill Tonic," a reference to a cold medicine around back then, and perhaps still available today.

http://www.shorpy.com/node/4501?size=_original

http://www.shorpy.com/node/5558?size=_original

http://www.monticellodrug.com/products/ ... eparation/

Jim Templin, in an earlier thread that mentioned both T&P 666 and that medicine, said the common name for the remedy in the Deep Sough was "Three Sixes."

How many of us wish one of these was still around, or a Potomac (4-8-4 on the WM)?


As it turns out, WM did have 2-6-6-2s. That road used a Baldwin design, which looks a good deal different from the Alco designed C&O engine (even though Baldwin built some of them):

http://www.steamlocomotive.com/2-6-6-2/?page=wm

http://www.steamlocomotive.com/2-6-6-2/ ... tchell.jpg

These 2-6-6-2s, which apparently never did get superheaters, were rebuilt as 0-6-6-0s, and in the process got a C&O-looking "flying pumps" treatment:"

http://www.toytrains1.com/articulated6.htm

Just another good shot of the 1309:

http://cs.trains.com/cfs-file.ashx/__ke ... _5D00_.jpg

Jeff, I agree, the WM's 4-6-6-4s may have been the best looking examples of the wheel arrangement ever built. To my eyes they also look a lot like a B&O 2-8-8-4, which makes sense--both were built by Baldwin in roughly the same era, and so have certain Baldwin construction details, such as sand domes and those semi-cylindrical air compressor shields Baldwin often seemed to use.

Unfortunately, there are stories that the 4-6-6-4s were a disappointment on the WM, with not much more tractive effort than the big Decapods they were supposed to replace, and apparently peak power at a higher speed than what WM had in mind for the service these engines were intended, on the line from Cumberland to Connelsville.

In contrast, the postwar 4-8-4s were much beloved, plenty of power in the right range for where they were primarily used (Hagerstown to Cumberland). These engines were the last newly designed 4-8-4s by anybody. However, some would argue they were far from the best lookers around!

http://www.steamlocomotive.com/northern/?page=wm

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/wm/wm-s1408aps.jpg

The double (fore-and-aft) sand domes, high headlight, and off-center bell reminded at least one writer that these engines were what a 4-8-4 would have looked like on the B&O!

http://www.leclairerail.com/Baldwin/0556wm1403left.jpg

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/wm1403sa.jpg

Whether you like their looks or not, do you still wish we had one of these, too? I do.

They are definitely some brutish-looking Northerns with their low drivers. I like 'em.

My understanding is that the WM's 4-8-4s were the last new design for an American road. They were not the last built, not even by a commercial builder. That honor goes to C&O J-3a class 610-614, by Lima in 1948 (and of course, the 614 is still with us); the last 4-8-4s for any North American road were N&W's home-made Js 611-613 (and of course, we know quite well that we still have 611).

Hmm, were the WM's J-1s the last 4-8-4s built by Baldwin--or were Baldwin's last of that wheel arrangement the RF&P "Statesmen" engines, which actually replaced diesels on the through streamliners on that road? I think both may have been built in 1947. . .got some looking up to do. . .

Jeff -

I wholeheartedly agree. Perhaps someone might photoshop one of them someday, to see what they would have then looked like.

Les