page_title: 4-4-2 (locomotive)
section_title: United States of America
hierarchical_section_title: 4-4-2 (locomotive) / Usage / United States of America
caption_attribution_description: English: Class A-3 #3025 of 1904 built by Schenectady on display at Travel Town in Los Angeles
context_page_description: Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives by wheel arrangement, 4-4-2 represents a configuration of four leading wheels on two axles, usually in a leading bogie with a single pivot point, four powered and coupled driving wheels on two axles, and two trailing wheels on one axle, usually in a trailing truck which supports part of the weight of the boiler and firebox and gives the class its main improvement over the 4-4-0 configuration.
  This wheel arrangement is commonly known as the Atlantic type, although it is also sometimes called a Milwaukee or 4-4-2 Milwaukee, after the Milwaukee Road, which employed it in high speed passenger working.
context_section_description: The original Atlantics in the United States were built with the hauling of wood-frame passenger cars in mind and came in a variety of configurations, including the four-cylinder Vauclain compound which had previously been used on express 4-4-0 American, 4-6-0 Ten-wheeler and 2-4-2 Columbia locomotives. Around the 1910s, railroads started buying heavier steel passenger cars, which precipitated the introduction of the 4-6-2 Pacific type as the standard passenger locomotive. Nonetheless, the Chicago and North Western, Southern Pacific, Santa Fe and Pennsylvania railroads used 4-4-2 Atlantics until the bitter end of steam locomotive fleets in the 1950s, with some even being used in light local freight switching service.
  One of the best-known groups of 4-4-2s in the United States was the Pennsylvania Railroad's vast fleet of E class Atlantics, culminating in the PRR E6s class.
  Although Atlantics were sometimes used as mountain helpers prior to the First World War, they were not well-suited for mountain grades. They had large-diameter driving wheels, in some cases exceeding 72 inches (1,829 millimetres), which were adequate for 70 to 100 miles per hour (110 to 160 kilometres per hour) trains. They tended to oscillate at higher speeds when the drive rods were connected to the rear pair of drivers. This was not standard practice in the U.S., however. The nation's biggest user of the type was the Santa Fe with 178 of the type. All of these were built with 73 inches (185 centimetres) or 79 inches (201 centimetres) drivers and the drive rods connected to the first pair of driving wheels.
  In 1905, Santa Fe engineer Charles Losee was widely reported to have driven Atlantic type 510, a 1904 balanced compound built by Baldwin, the 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometres) from Cameron to Surrey in Illinois with a three car special train in one minute and thirty-five seconds. If that had been confirmed by a disinterested party, the 106 miles (171 kilometres) per hour speed would have set a world record. These were never used on the road's Rocky Mountain grades; even on the flat plains of Kansas the Atlantics were soon overwhelmed by the weight of the newest all-steel, 85 feet (26 metres) passenger cars. Despite their excellent performance, most were retired long before other locomotives of their era, and the few survivors wound up on light local trains.
caption: SP Class A-3 no. 3025 of 1904, on display at Travel Town in Los Angeles
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