Engine Names--History Lesson needed

...or for a prominent individual, eg, The William Crooks (4-4-0) named for the first superintendent of the Minnesota & Pacific (eventually part of the Great Northern) Railroad.

I think you will find that the single letter designations for PRR electric locomotives still follows the steam locomotive wheel arrangement "pattern". Such as, the PRR never had any 4-6-4 steam locomotives, but had they it follows that they would have been a "P" class, and thus the P5 4-6-4 electrics. The same holds true for the 4-8-4 wheel arrangement, which would have been an "R" class, thus the R1 electric, which was the forerunner of the GG1 class electrics.

Hot  Water

You analysis of the single letter designation of the PRR motors following the steam locomotive classes is correct.

The R motor was the westinghouse test locomotive and the GG was the GE entry.

The R were a little more powerful but the GG tracke dbetter through switches and became the PRR standard passenger electic on the corridor.

An old guy that I worked with very early in my career and who was on the PRR electrification project once told me that the tale of the PRR GG1 classification of two back to back 4-6-0's is incorrect. He told me that PRR (and GE) named the GG1 after George Gibbs, the architect of the PRR electrification.

Your old guy was wrong.  GG1 was definitely based on the wheel arrangement. 

DD1 4-4-0+0-4-4

FF1 2-6-0+0-6-2

BB1 0-6-0+0-6-0

GG1 4-6-0+0-6-4

Stuart

Stuart

I must admit that I agree with Stuart!

Originally "married pairs", The BB1's were later separated into individual B1's.  

Ok enough of the electric Hijack and Back to steam

What did the CRI&P, MoPac, SSW, and TP&W call their 4-8-4s? NORTHERNs

Are you sure about that?

Yeah, backup is GOOD.

From Information I have seen, the 4 railroads mentioned did not seem to have a particular name for these classes on the railroad other than Northern.

The B&O named each of their top of the line Pacific (4-6-2) locomotives after American presidents.  The "President Washington" is preserved at the B&O RR museum in Baltimore. There were 20 of these locomotives named after the first 21 presidents, but there was only one locomotive named "President Adams." :-)

Bob

An alternative story I've read about suggests that they were called "Pacifics" because the first ones were exported to New Zealand, in the South Pacific.  I just learned from Wikipedia that in South Africa they are referred to as "Karoos".

Does anyone else find it ironic how widely popular Pacifics were in Europe?

Here's a one-question quiz: does anyone know what a 2-6-4 is?  (Common among us toy train fans, but as far as I know only existed in real-life overseas.)

Pacifics were extremely succesful in North America, too. Very few Class 1 railroads did not roster 4-6-2's (running a quick flip through my mental rolodex, can't think of any class 1 w/o a 4-6-2). But due to the much more rugged demands placed on North American steam locomotives in terms of horsepower for speed and weight of passenger trains, 4-6-2's were eclipsed, ultimately by 4-8-4's and 4-6-4's.

Yeah HW you got me, all I have came up with is Northerns unless there were some "slang" names I am just not finding.  So what cha' got?

I don't know either, Chris. That's why I thought a little quiz might be helpful. 

i recall seeing a 2-6-4 being called an "Adriatic" in some long ago book.

Rusty

Correct; after the Austrian Gölsdorf Class 210/310's.

The part I ment to insinuate about European Pacifics was the fact that the Pacific Ocean is nowhere near Europe!

In Europe it's an "Adriatic". In USA it's a "Lionel Special"!

Lionel Lines must handle some heavy traffic, like iron ore, as their "Adriatic" has double compound air compressors!

And that it was....and fun.  I had books all over my desk and I thought I was going crazy...

The 4-14-4 "Stalin Nightmare". Rigid and unable to diverge from a hard line.

All in all, the AAHOPEEB is not a bad looking locomotive!  It appears to be about three stories tall.   Sort of reminds me of the 2-10-10-10-10-6 "Zilch" proposed by Model Railroader in the Ray L. Rhodes column in the '50's! Also reminds one of the Russian narrow gauge 0-10-0's with about 30" drivers.......used for passenger service! A land of marvelous design committees!

       Ace is a very humorous contributor!

And then... there's this mutated beast (namely the first two pics):

http://www.douglas-self.com/MU...OCO/petiet/frexp.htm

Nice! Would have enjoyed seeing about 27 of them working a 19 car freight train up Sherman Hill!

DL&W- pocono

LV- wyoming

NYC- niagara

C&O- greenbrier

SP- golden state

WM- potomac

GN- empire builder

NP- northern

RF&P- governor/general

NC&STL- dixie

CofG- big apple

NW- j

AT&SF- fef

CN- confederation

ACL- R1 or 1800's

RDG- T-1

there were 36 railroads that had 4-8-4's, total of 1,125 were made.

AT&SF-65

ACL-12

CN-160

CP-2

CofG-8

C&O-12

C&NW-35

CB&Q-36

CMStP&P-52

CRI&P-85

D&H-15

DL&W-55

D&RGW-19

GTW-43

GN-20

LV-37

MP-40

NC&StL-25

NofM-32

NYC-28

N&W-14

NP-49

RDG-30

RF&P-27

StL&SF-25

SSW-20

SOO-4

SP-70

SP&S-3

T&NO-4(canada)

T&NO-4

TP&W-6

UP-45

Wabash-25

WM-12

WP-6

Sorry Pete, your list is incorrect.

1) AT&SF did NOT refer to their 4-8-4s as "fef"!  The UP did, which you left off your list of "names".

2) Concerning the ACL, "R1" or "1800s" is NOT a NAME.

3) For N&W, "j" which should be capitalized, is NOT a "name".

4) There is really no documentation that the Great Northern ever "named" their 4-8-4s "empire builder".

5) You forgot what the D&RGW named their 4-8-4s.

Thanks for participating. 

hot water,

"It is hard to imagine the Great Northern Railway accepting the term "Northern" for engines developed by it's arch competitor and didn't. Instead, GN chose(initially,anyway) to refer to its 4-8-4's by the name of the train they were intended to pull, THE EMPIRE BUILDER.

(taken from Fantastic 4-8-4 Locomotives magazine)

the FEF was a typo error

the ACL DID NOT name their 4-8-4's, instead used their class or road #'s R1 or 1800's

there was NO mention of a name for the D&RGW

ALL of this information came from Classic Trains Special Edition Magazine #10 Fantastic 4-8-4 Locomotives.

Pete,  the D&RGW called them Westerns.

I still say "J" is a name as well as a class.....or how about "Jay"...

Exactly, Santa Fe referred to their locomotives by class, using the first number of the series.  Their Northerns were:

2900 Class

3751 Class

3765 Class

True, not names, but they had "class" !

Rusty

with the NP, GN and SP&S all owned by James Hill, i'd hardly call them competitors, ... perhaps rivals would be a better term.

i've read through the Charles and Dorothy Wood GN book a number of times and they never refer to either the S1 or S2 Northerns as "Empire Builders" and in fact, the GN Northerns pretty much shared the Builder motive power with the original P2 Mountain class until diesel power took over.

Looks like our friend Andrey Andreyev was a good buddy of Joseph Stalin. They were together in the General secretariat which headed up the communist party which was the defacto power in the Soviet Union in those days. He became the Chairman of the Soviet Union in 1938 and was doing great until the Beria Purge in 1952.

Along the way in Mr Andreyev was the Minister of Transport and he commissioned the construction of this locomotive which was built part in Germany and part in the Soviet Union in 1934. It apparently was not a successful machine as it went into storage for 25 years following a 1935 publicity tour to Moscow. It was scrapped in 1960.

Great stuff this Google

"Ever hear of the "Montana Type? The obscurity of that Great Northern designation for the 4-8-4 wheel arrangement helps explain why the railway's mechanically notable S-1's and S-2's eluded fame. Their haunts in North Dakote, Montana, and Washington were simply too remote from the throngs for the engines to receive their just deserts."   Trains Magazine, p.18-19, July 1967      

The nicknames for engines generally weren't used by the actual railroaders running them. They generally referred to them by number, like "a twenty-nine hundred" type engine. Virtually every railroad assigned a letter 'class' to a particular type of engine, so on one railroad a 4-8-4 might be assigned "A" when first delivered. A second batch might be classed "A1". This also had nothing to do with the nickname, the railroad's advertising might boast it's Poconos or Dixies or whatever, but it wasn't used officially.

To add to the mixture; a T-1 Pennsy is a 4-4-4-4, while a T-1 Reading Lines was a 4-8-4.

Same number of wheels total but differant drive wheel arrangements.

Diesels are a little easier but not much.

A GP-7 is a general purpose diesel engine, GP-60.

An SD-45 is a special duty? Not sure on this one. Now the SD-70Mac, SD-90.

Then you have E-7's, F-7's, E-8's, FP-7's, FP-7B.

Also a calf unit or an engine without a cab, just the diesel engine and motors.

The Union Pacific tried a gas/turbine engine.

Lee Fritz

I think a few of us are confusing "nicknames" with offical railroad designations.

in most cases here we are actually confusing various levels of nicknames.  on paper or schedules, the UP did not refer to the 4-8-8-4's as Big Boys, on the NYC a Hudson was a J class and even on the Northern Pacific, the 4-8-4's were their A class locomotives.

in some cases, there was overlap.  the UP FEF's really were FEF class and the SP's Golden State 4-8-4's were their GS class.

i have no doubt some shift in a GN shop at sometime may have referred to some of their Northern's as a "Montanas", maybe if only to not confuse locomotives on their division's roster, but i doubt you'll ever find another reference to that name in any other text.

maybe it's like Cats...

"... a locomotive must have three different names."