4-6-2 Pacific

The **4-6-2 Pacific** is a steam locomotive in the game Railroad Tycoon II. It becomes available in the year 1908 and is the fastest locomotive available in the game at that point. It is fantastic for use on long distance express passenger runs because of it's great top speed and power. However, due to high maintenance and fuel costs, this locomotive will find it hard to turn a profit on other types of trains or freight.

When this engine comes out, it should replace any of the locomotives that are on express routes between large cities. It is important to ensure that the Pacific's are as efficient as possible, and this should be done, by not over-saturating demand at stations, have Pacifics waiting too long at stations, have Pacific trains running empty, or have them in congested areas. It is for this reason that it might be necessary to begin constructing specific track for express train use, and routing local and slower trains on different tracks, in order to allow the pacific to reach it's maximum speed for long stretches, which allows profit to be maximized in turn, making up for any extra track maintenance. It should be noted that while this locomotive is powerful, it will still struggle to get anywhere on grades any higher than 3.5-4%, and therefore any rough terrain should be handled by locomotives like the Mogul or Camelback (in more extreme situations). The Pacific lifetime lasts until roughly 1935 when the Mallard and GG1 come out, as they are superior locomotives in every aspect when it comes to pulling express trains.

## History

The introduction of the 4-6-2 design in 1901 has been described as "a veritable milestone in locomotive progress". On many railways worldwide, Pacific steam locomotives provided the motive power for express passenger trains throughout much of the early to mid-20th century, before either being superseded by larger types in the late 1940s and 1950s, or replaced by electric or diesel-electric locomotives during the 1950s and 1960s. Nevertheless, new Pacific designs continued to be built until the mid-1950s.

The type is generally considered to be an enlargement of the 4-4-2 Atlantic type, although its prototype had a direct relationship to the 4-6-0 Ten-wheeler and 2-6-2 Prairie, effectively being a combination of the two types.[4] The success of the type can be attributed to a combination of its four-wheel leading truck which provided better stability at speed than a 2-6-2 Prairie, the six driving wheels which allowed for a larger boiler and the application of more tractive effort than the earlier 4-4-2 Atlantic, and the two-wheel trailing truck, first used on the New Zealand 2-6-2 Prairie of 1885. This permitted the firebox to be located behind the high driving wheels and thereby allowed it to be both wide and deep, unlike the 4-6-0 Ten-wheeler which had either a narrow and deep firebox between the driving wheels or a wide and shallow one above.

The type is well-suited to high speed running. The world speed record for steam traction of 126 miles per hour (203 kilometres per hour) has been held by a British Pacific locomotive, the *Mallard*, since 3 July 1938.

The Pacific became the major express passenger locomotive type on many railways throughout the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Examples were also built for fast freight and mixed traffic duties. However, due to the increasing weight of trains during the 1940s, larger developments of the type became necessary in the United States and elsewhere. The most notable of these was the 4-6-4 Hudson or Baltic type, which had a four-wheel trailing bogie that permitted an even larger firebox, albeit at a loss of some adhesive weight, and the 4-8-2 Mountain type which used an extra pair of driving wheels to deliver more tractive effort to the rails. Nevertheless, the Pacific type remained widely used on express passenger trains until the end of steam traction. The last examples were built in the United Kingdom and Japan in the mid-1950s. British Railways introduced its Standard class 6 and class 7 designs in 1951 and 1952, and the final United Kingdom design, the Standard Class 8, in 1954.[6]