Small Engine Triple+ Headers?

Colorado narrow gauge photos have 2-6-0 and 2-8-0 doubleheaders and tripleheaders in abundance - especially pushing a Russel ("bucker") snowplow through deep drifts.

Narrow gauge 0-4-0's teamed up around PA anthracite mines. Not certain about 0-6-0's.

The Santa Fe used 2-6-2's as pushers for 2-10-4's and 4-8-4's on Curtis Hill.

Does this count?  They tried the same maneuver the previous day with a double header, which was met with frequent wheel slips.  The triple header handled the 1225 with relative ease.

There are many photos of the Western Maryland handling coal trains with two big 2-8-0s on the headend, plus two more 2-8-8s in the middle, plus two more 2-8-0s pushing on the reared,. I thing there was a whole group of photos in a Classic Trains Magazine some years ago.

And boy did those three saturated steam locomotives mess-up EVERYTHING in the display area, what with their moisture soaked soot & cinders!

Heck of a sight though!

I have a book on the Clinchfield that includes a photo of three steam engines (2-8-2's, I believe) on the head end of a train leaving Kingsport, TN.  The book indicates this was a common occurence until the Clinchfield took articulated locomotives during the Second World War.

Curt

The Bessemer and Lake Erie ran small locomotives double headed and with pushers

to bring Ore Jennies from Conneaut Ohio to the smelters in Pittsburgh

Colorado narrow gauge multilocomotive activity I am familiar with.  I'd like to see

photos of that described anthracite mine use of multiple teakettles or anything

similar.

Canadian Pacific ran triple headed D10 4-6-0's on their Vermont (USA) line. Pictures of a triple header fighting up Newport Hill with "The Newsboy" (so named as it moved paper from Canada to NE newspapers) appeared in Beebe & Clegg's "Age of Steam" book.

Suppose double-headed does not count, but C&NW subsidiary "Omaha Road" (CStPM&O) regularly ran double headed 4-6-0's on stock and general merchandise trains across the length of their railroad. A curiosity one can see today......Union Pacific still has cars with the reporting mark of "CMO", which are the Omaha's. Some type of accounting action, no doubt.

You do realize that was done for show, right?  One of those engines could have easily moved the 1225 by itself.  Of course, when you start dragging brakes, it becomes so much more impressive--and it really was one of the coolest parts of the entire festival.

Kevin

Any of this is completely plausible.....in the right situation.  Railroads are/were no different than any other business in not wanting to waste money.  If you could do the job with one engine, there wasn't any reason to do multiple engines.  That said, there are situations where multiple engines are needed.

#1...you can always put enough power on the front to pull a train.  You can also easily break a coupler with too much power on one end.  At a certain point, you need a rear pusher....or even mid-train helpers.

#2...if a good-sized railroad is running small power instead of a much larger engine, there is usually a good reason.  Curvature, clearances, or restrictions on bridges are the big ones usually.

#3...extra power to get over the hill when the plan didn't work.  Wet sand, bad coal, or whatever other issue can require whatever is available to get the train over the hill/out of the yard, etc.

There are some other situations where this could (and did) happen also.  The key is that there has to be a rational reason for it.

Kevin

Well, having been there for the whole event, I can tell you that two of those tank engines could NOT pull the dead 1225 out of its display area and back to the turntable. Sure those tank engines put on a great show, but it did indeed take all three to accomplish the move!

CO HR,

Yep, on the standard gauge.  Roughly, IIRC, WWI time frame

ChipR

I wouldn't consider the WM H-9 (or the H-8's. for that matter) "small" engines as mentioned in the opening post.

Hot Water is correct -- there are a lot of photos (and videos, too) of multiple WM Consolidations pulling and pushing coal drags up from Elkins to Bayard.  2-2-2 and 3-2-3 were the common configurations.

Poppyl

Saw an article somewhere (Colorado RR Museum publication?) speculating that the Rio Grande quintuple locomotive picture was staged so as to cadge more money out of the US Post Office for the D&RG's "high expenses" transporting the mail! 

The Southern Pacific wasn't shy about using multiple 2-8-0s on some of their lines, especially the Tillamook branch.  There are a couple of images here.