4-8-4

The winner!

Six years late Yr Fthfl Srvnt is finally reading some the stuff shoved aside when his beloved wife died. Trains magazines, Classic Trains; I’m a lifelong railfan. I’m 74.
Steam locomotion was being replaced by diesels into the ‘40s — I’m 1944. But I was lucky enough to experience steam locomotives in actual revenue service.
“How come every vacation involves trains?” my wife used to ask. She was excellent company. I’ve seen wives badmouth their husbands because they were chasing trains.
“Better he chases trains than other women,” my wife always said.
A nephew is also a railfan. I warned his bride before they married: “Yer marrying a railfan,” I told her. “Better he chase trains than other women.”


WHERE IT ALL BEGAN. The picture is 1956, but it’s the exact location where my father first took me to watch trains in 1946. (Photo by Robert Long©.)

One of my 2012 set-asides was a booklet on 4-8-4 steam locomotives.
Huge and dramatic, 4-8-4s were the pinnacle of railroad steam locomotive development.
The booklet has an introductory article by Bill Within, Curator Emeritus of the Smithsonian. It’s a must-read.
Mr. Within notes 4-8-4s prompted, or coincided with, a change in railroading’s priorities. No longer were railroads developing tonnage-movers. Productivity came to the fore: the ability to move freight quickly, fast turnaround, and extended use between servicing.
It began with Lima Locomotive and its 2-8-4 Berkshire = a four-wheel trailing truck to support a large fire-grate.
Another development was the combustion-chamber; give the locomotive a furnace large enough to fully burn its coal.
Combine the two and you have what Lima called “SuperPower:” hot-rodded steam locomotion.
Within also notes the importance of roller-bearings, that rollers were as important as Westinghouse’s air-brake.
Compared to plain brass bearings in use back then, rollers were much more expensive, but allowed a steamer to boom-and-zoom.
Not all 4-8-4 steamers have rollers. Drive-axles on Nickel Plate 765 (2-8-4) aren’t, but on Norfolk & Western 611 (4-8-4) they are, even the drive-rods.
A Norfolk & Western J (611 is a J) could pull 15 coaches 110 mph. I’ve ridden behind 765 over 70 mph — we clocked it. I rode behind 611 over 80!
I have video pacing 611. Hasha-hasha-hasha-hasha! Heavy as the Js were, girls could pull ‘em. They had little rolling resistance.
I also have video of a Norfolk & Western J booming past a yard at about 100. Heavy roller-bearing side-rods are flashing up-and-down. At 110 mph its smallish 70-inch drivers (80-inches were the norm) were rotating at 528 rpm.
Now rollers are a given. They became the norm about 30-50 years ago — an all-roller experimental 4-8-4 was financed by Timken®. Even freightcars are now on rollers. Years ago railroad wheels were on plain bearings heavy with grease, etc.
The first 4-8-4 was by Northern Pacific in 1926. The idea was to be able to use locally-produced cheaper low heat-content coal. To do so the fire-grate had to be large. To provide a larger firebox they needed a four-wheel truck to carry it, keeping axle-loading minimal.
Pennsy never did a Northern. Its track-structure could support a heavily-loaded two-wheel trailing truck. Its 4-8-2 Mountain was nearly a 4-8-4. It had a combustion-chamber, but at 70 square feet its fire grate wasn’t SuperPower.
With Northern Pacific’s 4-8-4, railroads wondered about higher-grade coal in such a locomotive. Ordering began, but not a flood. 20 here and there, but not the hundreds of the ‘teens. Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, Santa Fe, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific.
In many cases railroads avoided the “Northern” moniker — especially in the south. “Potomac,” “Pocono,” “Greenbrier,” etc. Reading converted a 2-8-0 Consolidation class with its gigantic Wootten firebox into a 4-8-4 that burned coal of higher heat-content than the anthracite for which it was designed.
On-and-on the booklet went, first Within, then five more must-reads by Neil Carlson, including a treatise on various technical improvements to the 4-8-4.
So which was the slam-dunk? Santa Fe’s gigantic desert-hounds, or New York Central’s Niagara? Or was it Norfolk & Western’s mighty J?
The booklet says the Niagara.


A Niagara has roller-bearing side-rods. (Classic Trains Collection.)

5,000 drawbar horsepower packed into Central’s tight clearances. No boiler-top appurtenances. The exhaust-stack was only seven inches high. The Niagara was right to the limit; only 1&1/4 inches clearance.
No steam-dome. By using a top-slotted European dry-pipe they could do a 100-inch boiler, pretty much the norm for a modern 4-8-4.
Sadly New York Central never did serious testing of the Niagara. Diesels were immanent.