Wheeling & Lake Erie 2-6-6-2 "Mallet Mogul" Locomotives in the USA

Class I-2 (Locobase 7895)

Data from W&LE 8 - 1923 & 10 1924 Locomotive Diagram books supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange. (See also "Mallet Locomotive for the Wheeling & Lake Erie", Railway and Locomotive Engineering, Volume LXXXI [81], No 1 January 1918), p. 4.

(Thanks to Chris Hohl for his 4 December 2017 email noting the original tender capacities and weights as well as pointing out the original R&LE superheater area.) Works numbers were 57043-57052 in April 1917, 57704-57713 in May.

This class owns the distinction of having the biggest-diameter HP and LP cylinders of any 2-6-6-2 Locobase has uncovered. Firebox area was relatively grand as well, the basic hearth heating surface and largest-ever grate augmented by 50 sq ft (4.65 sq m) in five arch tubes as well as the area contributed by the combustion chamber. The design also had tall drivers. Each of the four cylinders were fed by 12" (305 mm) piston valves. Although the R&LE report said that the superheater area measured 1,450 sq ft (134.71 sq m), the lower figure shown in the specs was established by the railroad only a few years later.

They were operated on the 80 miles (129 km) of the Toledo division between Pluron, Ohio and Brewster, Ohio where the ruling grade climbed 0.6% over a five-mile climb. The ruling grade is 0.6 per cent, 5 miles (8 km) long. A typical train of 61 loaded cars weighed 4,314 tons. The I-2 averaged 17 mph (27.4 km/h) pulling that train. Delivered with boilers set at 200 psi (13.8 bar), the W&LE soon increased BP to 210 psi.

Eugene Huddleston (Trains, March 1991) tells us that the I-2s were an older design than the USRA Light Mallets that the railroad received just two years later (Locobase 7896). Locobase suspects they were good enough for two decades, although likely to run out of steam on main-line freight runs trying to supply those big HP cylinders, but when the much more up-to-date K-1 2-8-4s (Locobase 64) came on the property in the 1930s, the W&LE shed these compounds quickly. By the end of the 1930s, they had all been scrapped.

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Class I-3 (USRA) (Locobase 7896)

Data from W&LE 8 - 1923 & 10 1924 Locomotive Diagram books supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange. See also DeGolyer, Volume 58, pp. 173+. Works numbers were 52178, 52265 in August 1919; 52287-52290, 52313, 52330, 52350, 52424 in September.

Compared to the Brooks-built 2-6-6-2s delivered two years earlier (Locobase 7896) these had smaller cylinders and drivers, but larger boilers and more firebox heating surface using longer boiler tubes. The combustion chamber contributed 155 sq ft (14.4 sq m) and 34 sq ft (3.16 sq m) came from five arch tubes. The size of the direct heating components can be judged by the provision of 1,080 flexible staybolts in the combustion chamber water space and the breaking zone of the firebox. All four cylinders used 12" (305 mm) piston valves.

They were in fact USRA Light articulateds (Locobase 14240), one of that government enterprise's less-successful designs that on the W&LE served mine runs out of Pine Valley, Ohio. The original light articulated tender held 12,000 US gallons (45,420 litres) of water and 16 tons (14.5 tonnes) of coal; its loaded weight was given as 214,000 lb (97,069 kg).

According to Eugene Huddleston (Trains, March 1991, p 37), "No one on the Wheeling ever said the USRA Mallets were a bad design; it was just that a use for them could not be found commensurate with their specifications."

Six were scrapped in the early 1940s. The last four--8001-8003, 8009--remained in service until the 1950s, essentially unchanged. They spent their last days rostered on the Nickel Plate, which had leased the W&LE for 99 years in 1949, and were renumbered 940-943. The 941 retired last on 22 February 1955.