0-4-2

In Whyte notation, a 0-4-2 is a railroad steam locomotive that has four coupled driving wheels followed by two trailing wheels, with no leading wheels. 0-4-2 locomotives are typically tank engines, which is noted by adding a T to the end, 0-4-2T. Although there were none in the US, Athearn, a model train company, made an HO scale 0-4-2 under the name "Little monster" for the NWRR.

Other equivalent classifications are:

UIC classification: B1 (also known as German classification and Italian classification)

French classification: 021

Turkish classification: 23

Swiss classification: 2/3

Germany

The first locomotive built in Germany, the "Saxonia", named after Saxony, was an 0-4-2.

New Zealand

The 0-4-2T arrangement was used by two classes of locomotives operated by the New Zealand Railways Department. The first was the C class of 1873, originally built as 0-4-0T. The class was found to be unstable at speeds higher than 15 mph, so by 1880, all members of the class had been converted to 0-4-2T to rectify this problem. The second and more notable 0-4-2T class, and the only one actually built as 0-4-2T, was the unique H class designed to operate the Rimutaka Incline on the Wairarapa Line. The Incline's steep gradient necessitated the use of the Fell mountain railway system, and the six members of the H class spent their entire lives operating trains on the Incline. Except for a few brief experiments with other classes, the H class had exclusive use of the Incline from their introduction in 1875 until the Incline's closure in 1955. The class leader, H 199, is preserved on static display at the Fell Engine Museum in Featherston and is the only extant Fell locomotive in the world.

0-4-2T was also employed for steam locomotives operated by small private industrial railways and bush and mineral tramways. One such locomotive, built by Peckett and Sons in 1938, is currently operational on the Goldfields Railway that runs between Waihi and Waikino along a stretch of the former route of the East Coast Main Trunk Railway in the Bay of Plenty.

ee also

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*LMR 57 Lion
*LB&SCR B1 Class