page_title: 2-4-2
section_title: United Kingdom
hierarchical_section_title: 2-4-2 / Usage / United Kingdom
caption_attribution_description: 5ft 6in 2-4-2 tank engine, in LNWR livery
context_page_description: Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 2-4-2 represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, four powered and coupled driving wheels on two axles and two trailing wheels on one axle. The type is sometimes named Columbia after a Baldwin 2-4-2 locomotive was showcased at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition held at Chicago, Illinois.
context_section_description: The earliest British use of the 2-4-2 wheel arrangement appears to have been no. 21 White Raven, supplied to the St Helens Railway by James Cross of Sutton Works in 1863. It was soon rebuilt as a 2-4-0 tender locomotive and eventually passed into the stock of the London and North Western Railway (L&NWR).
  In 1864, Robert Sinclair of the Great Eastern Railway designed the first of six 2-4-2 tank classes built by the railway, eventually totalling 262 locomotives by 1912.
  Francis Webb of the London and North Western Railway also designed two 2-4-2 classes which eventually totaled 380 locomotives, built between 1879 and 1898.
  Other railway companies that built large numbers of the type included the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&YR) with 330 locomotives built between 1889 and 1911, the North Eastern Railway with 60 locomotives built between 1886 and 1892 and the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway with 49 locomotives built between 1889 and 1898. One of John Aspinall's Class 5 locomotives, built for the L&YR in 1889, is preserved at the National Railway Museum, York.
caption: London and North Western Railway 2-4-2T
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