Class M's, Mollies, class names and the like

[NW Mailing List]

There are a couple of items here I want to comment about, but ambition is failing today.  Hopefully, tommorrow morning will be better.  Bob Cohen mentioned that the nicknames for the 4-8-0 wheel arrangement was not necessarily "Mastodon".  He's right.  For generations, it was always 12-wheeler, in the same manner that a 4-6-0 was a 10-wheeler.  The name Mastodon was used (at least for a long time) for an SP 4-10-0 name El Gobernador.   Internet speed of misinformation changed all that.  More on that next day hence.  Even dedicated rivet-counters (and i-dotters and t-crossers) run out of steam occasionally.

Dave Stephenson




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 From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org 
Sent: Tuesday, September 10, 2013 2:35 PM
Subject: Class M's, Mollies, class names and the like
 


Gentlemen:

This a great discussion and when Jim added into the mix about the 2-8-2 wheel arrangement, I felt it was time to toss my hat into this ring.

The various wheel arrangements while somewhat generic named were also given the better known ones for very specific reasons:

The 2-8-0's were called Consolidations simply because the first order or large order was from a recent consolidation of railroad companies way back when .. the late 1860's or 1870's or so.

The 2-8-2's were called Mikado's because the first order went to the Japanese Mikado I think it was in 1897.

The first iconic order for the 4-6-2's went to MoPac, Missouri Pacific which named them Pacific type, I believe around 1904.

The what became ever-popular Mountain named 4-8-2 went to the C&O for their mountain divisions in the coalfields and they named it accordingly.

As for the 4-8-0's, not many roads had this wheel arrangement, with UP I think and the N&W being the primary users and it received the name Mastodon from who knows -- I've never read that one. They were always Class "M's" as Ed and Jim have reminded us and that probably the nickname Mollie probably got added later by parties now lost to history.


The N&W's famous Class J -- what did the N&W call those: Northern or Class J? Same animal but local name. Kind of like trolley -- they were called trams, streetcars (both one and two words), along with a few other things as well as local names as well.

Other wheel arrangements had been named similarly to the earlier ones mentioned.

Even the little used 2-4-2 type got a name "Columbia" I am told came from its having been displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1892-1893. Of course this small hauler was quickly over-shadowed by larger power which rapidly eclipsed these little types.


The 2-8-4's were named Berkshires as the Boston & Albany I think got the first, those from Lima and their new Super-Power concept which really took off. That was 1923-1925 or thereabouts.


The 2-10--0's were called Decapods for their 10 drivers and some specific ones which had been designated or ordered by the Russian Govt and never delivered to the after WW1 Bolshevik's, became Russian Decapods.

The 4-8-4's were first ordered by NP and became Northern's for most roads but they did have other names as well, Lackawanna called theirs Poconos, C&O called theirs Greenbriars and a number of others had names for theirs as well. The NC&StL couldn't call theirs after any northern company or name or anything from Yankee land, so theirs became something else more fitting to their Southern traditions.

I had never heard of the L&N's "Big Emma's" being called anything other than that but I grew up with David P. Morgan and he called them that and not the M1's as referred within these fine pages so perhaps DPM was a bit guilt of that little change to historical reference.

The 4-10-2's were called the SP type as they were the predominate user of that little used wheel arrangement, never minding their 3rd cylinder.

The 4-12-2 was similarly called the UP type for the same reason as the SP, only the UP had that one, also with an inside 3rd cylinder.

As NYC was the initial order-er for the 4-6-4 type, no surprise what these were named for us romantics -- the Hudson type. Oh, what a shame one of the Central's 4-6-4's was saved for us to ruminate over. However that is for another day.

The 4-6-0's I have always seen called "ten-wheel" types.

And I suspect the first 2-10-2's went to the AT&SF although can't recall details. The 2-10-4's were an outgrowth of the 2-10-2's as something larger was required for a specific type of work load.

One last one -- 2-8-8-4 -- the first order for those went to was it NP or GN which needed this big hauler for out near the Yellowstone region and so with their humongous firebox to burn that stuff they had on their road which wasn't a whole lot better than improvised dirt (aka-lignite), the first of these went there, along with their name. Somewhere I saw a surmising that perhaps these would have been more powerful than the Allegheny or Big Boy's if they had put good grade coal in one, but alas, that answer awaits us all in that great roundhouse in the sky, someday.

Bob Cohen
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