Tender Locomotives 2-6-2 “Prairie”

The wheel arrangement 2-6-2 stands for a locomotive with one leading axle, three driven axles and a trailing axle. The following designations exist in the different naming systems:

Prairie

UIC: 1'C1'

Whyte: 2-6-2

Switzerland: 3/5

France: 131

Turkey: 35

The greatest variety of 2-6-2 designs were tank locomotives. The tender designs were mostly used for passenger and mixed traffic. On most locomotives the connecting rods were connected to the central driving axle, what led to a tendency to sway at speed. This could be improved by connecting the last driving axle. 

In the USA, the 2-6-2 was developed from the 2-6-0 “Mogul” by adding a trailing axle that supports a larger firebox. Since most were used in the Midwestern prairies, this wheel arrangement was soon called “Prairie”. In total, more than 1,000 locomotives of this wheel arrangement were built in the USA. The biggest user here was the ATSF.

In the UK, the only operator with considerable amounts of 2-6-2 tender locomotives was the LNER when Gresley introduced his classes V2 and V4. In mainland Europe, there were some countries which used greater numbers of 2-6-2 tender locomotives. 

In Hungary, nearly 900 locomotives of the type IIIu (later class 324) were built between 1909 and 1923. In Russia, nearly 700 locomotives of the series S (С) were built between 1910 and 1919. Additionally, the Italian FS bought 422 locomotives of the classes 680 and 685 between 1907 and 1928. In Germany, the 2-6-2 tender locomotive was only relatively successful after World War II when the state railways of both Eastern and Western Germany used the class 23 prototype of 1941 in an attempt to create a successor to the Prussian P 8.