page_title: 2-6-2
section_title: Australia
hierarchical_section_title: 2-6-2 / Usage / Australia
caption_attribution_description: English: Class 57 2-6-2 Saddle Tank on pilot duty at Bruxelles Midi.
context_page_description: Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 2-6-2 represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels, six coupled driving wheels and two trailing wheels. This arrangement is commonly called a Prairie.
context_section_description: In Australia, no tender versions of the 2-6-2 operated on any system. However, three classes of 2-6-2T did.
  In New South Wales a class of twenty engines, the Z26 class, formerly the (I)17 class, entered service in 1892 and operated until the end of steam. Two are preserved, no. 2606 at the Rail Transport Museum at Thirlmere and no. 2605 at the State Mine Museum in Lithgow.
  The Silverton Tramway operated two 2-6-2T locomotives from 1891, both of which are preserved in South Australia.
  The principal 2-6-2T locomotives which were built for the narrow gauge system of the Victoria Railway (VR), are the now famous "Puffing Billy" engines. Two of these little locomotives arrived from Baldwin Locomotive works in 1898 and a total of seventeen saw service throughout the state on the various narrow gauge timber and gold lines, including the Wangaratta and Walhalla. When the VR determined to close the Upper Ferntree Gully to Gembrook narrow gauge route in the mid-1950s, the Victorian community refused to let the train die. Today, the Puffing Billy Railway has a fleet of saved and modified 2-6-2T engines on active steam roster and is one of Victoria's main tourist attractions.
caption: A Type 57 at Brussels South, 1957.
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