Most Common Steam Engine Still in Service?

Out of the four 2-8-2 locomotives you mentioned, only one is ALMOST serviceable, and that is former Southern Rwy/Kentucky & Tennessee 2-8-2 #4501. Probably the most "common" wheel arrangement available for mainline service in the U.S. would be the "eight drivered" 2-8-4/4-8-4 types, i.e NKP #765, PM #1225, AT&SF 3751, MIL RD #261, SP&S #700, UP #844, and SP #4449.   

Reading & Northern 425 will be back this summer

After 35 years, dedicated volunteers of PROJECT 113 returned this Jersey Central 0-6-0 to service last Fall. Camelback 4-4-2 No. 592 in the B&O Museum in Baltimore is the only other Jersey Central steam locomotive in existence.

The initial poster appears to have got it right.  I don't know how many Mikes are in service in New Mexico and Colorado, but I am going to guess that they outnumber all the rest combined, even counting the Standard Gauge Mikes.  I have been on trains that had three of them, and I know that same day there were easily that many on the point of other trains.

ReadingFan,

The original poster's title of this subject was "Most Common Steam Still in Service?", however you posted about a Pacific and an 0-6-0, neither "class" are in service on a regular basis. In fact, that Reading & Norther #425 is one of only two operational Pacific type steam locomotives on the North American Continent. 

In retrospect, the most common engines seem to be the Mikados and the Northerns.

And it took SO long to get a three rail mike, finally thanks to the early brass USRA version from Williams.

You don't acknowledge the MTH 2-8-2 models that have been available for decades? How about the K-Line 2-8-2 models?

I think the other Pacific still in operation would be the SP 2472, correct?  Matt

There are a LOT more than two 4-6-2s in service. 

1) R&N 425

2) SP 2472

3) Little River 110

4) Santa Fe 3415

5) Soo 2719

6) Central Ohio 1293

Not certain but I would suspect the most popular wheel arrangement on operating steam in the US today would fall in the 2-8-0 category, perhaps 0-6-0 or 0-4-0 as a runner up. 

If you lumped them together, narrow gauge Mikes and Consolidations, besides the Colorado engines, there is a bunch of amusement park locos that get a lot of use. Knott's runs almost every day, year around, not to mention WDW's engines.

It seems to me one has to define "in-service" before one can answer this: the range of answers above seem to vary with interpretations of that as meaning anything from "it runs and is operated occasionally" to "it's operated regularly."  

As framed, the question also seem to imply, or be interpreted as meaning in the US or North America.  Since I consider "in service" to mean regularly scheduled/posted nearly daily service, I think whatever type loco it is a narrow gauge type: Silverton-Durango, Cumbras and Toltec, etc. 

However, it is worth remembering that a lot of "heritage" steam is also run outside the US in places like India, the UK, New Zealand and Germany, etc., I wouldthink the most popular steam locomotive type still "in service" is a six- or eight-driver tank engine.

I found a list of operating steam engines on tourist railroads in a 2010 Trains magazine. Four years would have changed things somewhat but it gives a good idea of the population.  The list is not complete.  While it includes Disney in Florida, missing is Six Flags in St. Louis and Silver Dollar City in Branson MO.

175 steam engines (103 standard, 72 narrow gauge)

2-8-2 (28)

0-4-0T (20)

2-8-0 (20)

Three Truck Shay (12)

4-4-0 (10)

2-6-2 and 2-6-2T (7)

4-6-0 (6)

Nathan

I know we are talking " real trains" here, but O Scale has had Mikados since at least 1937.  This one is pre- 1941:

Of course O scale had Mikados:  they had a C&O K class by somebody before or just

after WWII,  They have had the Little River 2-4-4-2, McKeen cars, and probably the

double truck Heisler, etc.  I only whine about stuff three rail doesn't have.

Ex Soo Line 0-6-0 #353 is alive and well in Rollag, MN.

Well, the most common steam locomotive still in service would surely be Chinese. Plenty of them still being used on narrow-gauge lines over there, even though steam has mostly vanished from the mainlines. Plenty of industrial steam locomotives being used there still, as well. Think of the US in the early 1960s, and that's what China is like, steam-wise, at this time...