as a N&W steam era fan mastodon 4-8-0's are one of my favorite locomotives. From the herron rail pocahontas glory dvd's the mastodons were quite showcased in a fair amount of the dvd's. Volume 1 had the abingdon branch from abingdon to west jefferson behind mastodon 429, volume 2 featured the 1957 NRHS convention with the excursion doubleheaded train being led by N&W 475 which had its appearance backdated with a diamond stack. Volume 3 featured a mastodon in winter time on the shenandoah valley line, and volume 5 featured a mastodon on the blacksburg branch and on that same branch, a triple headed mastodon passenger train that was led by the 475 made an appearance too. There's also more abingdon branch footage in volume 8.
The operational example mentioned is 475 at Strasburg which sometimes is disguised as 382 for photo charters as a tribute to the work of O. Winston Link.
The N&W's last 11 M2's were classed as M2c's. They were quite handsome and modern looking with their feedwater heaters. My sense of the situation is by the time these modernized M2c's were perfected there was no real niche on the roster for a heavy duty Mastodon. The A's and Y's were holding down the front line freight assignments and the M2's were probably deemed too heavy for some of the assignments being held down by the older M's. I do recall a story that I heard once about an "1100" M2 being used in work train service. In the 50's that would be probably one of the few assignments on the mainline where a Mastodon actually "fit" the task. Thanks for another cool video!!!👍
The hungarian national railroad MÁV, also made a 4-8-0. It started mass production in 1924. The production ended in 1958. And was used to the end of the 80'. Around 500 was produced, 375 was used by MÁV the others were exports to Egypt and North Korea. It's called MÁV 424, in hungary 2 off them are working but probably more working, 1 in Serbia and some in NK.
You missed Delaware and Hudson 1403 "L. F. Loree". This not only had the rare 4-8-0 wheel arrangement but a 500psi boiler, four cylinders, triple expansion, and rotary driven poppet valves. It only traveled about 3000 miles in its lifetime, and is rumored to never have completed a full run without breaking down. Originally intended as a 2-8-0, the massive twin low pressure cylinders at the front of the frame forced the change to a 4-wheel pilot truck while it was still on the drawing board, It had one other distinction. It was only steam locomotive built in the United States in 1933 (the deepest year of the great depression)
L F Lorie was obsessed with high pressure steam right up to his retirement in 1938 It was not until his successor took over that D&H finally bought modern locks including several Challangers!!!
NZ had 2 classes of Mastodon type locomotives (Ba and Bb), totalling 40 locomotives and 1 of each class has been preserved. The Ba Class was built by NZ Railways and the Bb class was built by A & G Price. Only 10 locomotives of the Ba class and 30 of the Bb class were produced...
The Queensland Govt Railways had a large fleet of 4-8-0 locos, spread over 3 classes: the C16,C17 and C19; C signifying 4 Drive Axles; the Numbers denoted Cylinder Diameters (16 inches etc.) ; These were 3ft6in. Gauge; for use as both Freight and Mainline Passenger Trains. C17 and 18 were superheated, and the C17 class was the most numerous, with the C18 class for Mail Trains.
NZ of course basically having the equivalent with their B, Ba, and Bb classes. Later, they were rebuilt with high boilers and wide fireboxes and were very useful locos, their careers spanning over half a century
Little is known in the USA about the Andre Chapelon created twelve wheelers which were the most powerful locomotives ever built considering the hp/weight ratio. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNCF_240P
Another major user of 4-8-0's was the South African Railways,and its predecessors! They were used because of steep gradients,and long bouts of single track lines! As an aside,they were rebuilt into 4-8-2's,so they had mountain types,before the type was invented! There was a book on all known 4-8-0's,produced in the 1960's,try a good second hand book dealer,so might find it,also there was a two volume history of South African Railways locomotives,so it also might be useful!! Thank you for the attention! Thank you 😇 😊!
A couple of the pictures in this video show South African class 8 locomotives. Their predecessors were the smaller class 7, I have a short video clip which I made in George during my visit in 1994 which shows a preserved pair departing with a train to Knysna. But the type was also used in other neighbouring countries like Zimbabwe and Zambia, these were very similar to the South African designs. Then you had the class 1 for Natal. After these three classes no more 4-8-0s were built. Of rebuilding from existing 4-8-0 into 4-8-2 locomotives nothing is mentioned in the book 'Locomotives of the South African Railways' by Leith Paxton / David Bourne. Mentioned in the book are 4-8-2 and 4-10-2 tank locomotives which were rebuilt into 4-8-0 tender engines, becoming classes 13 and 17, they retained their side tanks. The 4-8-2 did emerge in the form of new classes being developed and would be become the most numerous type in SA.
Qualifier: in the US. NZ had one Mikado, and an early fleet of consolidations, all replaced by mastodons. The mastodon had a very useful wheel arrangement, fairly obviously being a consolidation with a lighter axle loading, and the examples in NZ with their 3' driving wheels and wide fireboxes were very useful hill climbers, their half century lifespans being testimony.
@@TheRailroadCrossing-SteamPower there were. They were given the D&IR Class J and numbered 60-89 and built by both Schenectady and Baldwin between 1893 and 1900. Numbers 60-72 were built by Schenectady in 1893 with number 73 following in 1895 from Schenectady and 84-89 in 1900 from Schenectady while 74-79 were built by Baldwin in 1896 and 80-83 in 1899 also from Baldwin. All were retired and scrapped by 1933.
As a Lackawanna fan, disappointed that you skipped over the 800 series of DL&W 20 mastodon camelbacks built in 1899. 44000 lbs TE. Used mainly to boost coal trains out of the valley, over the Poconos.
And there were also 6 other railroads that used them as well. I cant mention every railroad that used a locomotive. The video was over 10 minutes as it was just talking about the original design and the railroad that employed the most of them. 10 minutes is just about all someone will watch. It's just the way that it is. I do not set the demographics of peoples attention span.
