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Norfolk And Western Railway A and J Class Locomotives Soft Cover
Norfolk And Western Railway A and J Class Locomotives By William Warden
64 Pages
Copyright 1987
Soft Cover stapled
These three characteristics, so prized in any locomotive. steam or diesel, came close to reaching the Age of Steam's perfect combination in Norfolk & Western Railway J-class 4.8-4's and A-class 2-6-6-4's. It was this happy combination of speed, power, and availability, plus abundant online coal supplies that held the products of La Grange. Schenectady. and Erie at bay long after most Class I railroads Judged all steam power to be anachronistic.
How did these locomotives come to be and what did they accomplish?
The N&W had already established a reputation as a coal hauler without peer when the Great Depression of the 1930's struck. Coal didn't need to move rapidly; It lust had to be where it was needed when it was needed. The N&W entrusted this coal tonnage to 2-8.8-2 Mallets built between 1918 and 1932, plus some aging 2-6-6-2's. What merchandise traffic the road had was mostly moved by 2-8-8.2 compound engines despite their 45 mph - 50 if pushed - top speed. (If you wanna get faster service. go build your own railroad!) Mainline passenger traffic, never a big item on the N&W's balance sheet. was handled primarily by highly successful USRA-design 4-8.2's - so successful was the design that some of these engines were still running as late as 1958. Pre-World War I-vintage 4-6.2's poked into Virginia and West Virginia hollows with branchline locals and mixed trains.
But even as economic darkness gripped the country, there were clear signals that the railroad business of the future would demand longer. Heavier, and certainly faster freight and passenger trains. And the railroads that would come out on top once the economy started moving again would be those able to meet the challenge this new business would afford.
The N&W was better situated than most railroads to meet this challenge. Not encumbered by redundant trackage, pesky commuters, or excessive short hauls, the road was solvent as the 1930's dawned - solvent enough that it never skipped a common stock dividend, even in the darkest days of the Depression. This solvency was to allow the N&W to design super-power steam at a time when other railroads were bankrupt or close to it.
Most of the 2-8-8.2's and 4.8-2's on N&W property In the 1930's had been designed by the road's Motive Power Department and built in the N&W's Roanoke Shops. N&W management, aware that the Depression wouldn't last forever, reasoned that it would be cheaper to keep its designers and craftsmen on the payroll - even if this meant building locomotives for which there was no immediate need - than to start from scratch later on.
The reasoning paid off.
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