Atlantic (locomotive)
With Atlantic be Tender - steam locomotives with the wheel arrangement 2'B1 or 2'B1 designated ', ie with a leading end bogie , two coupled axles and a drive axle , either fixed in the frame can be mounted or movable.
history
The design takes its name from the five locomotives delivered to the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in 1894 - apart from one test locomotive with a corrugated pipe fire box, the first machines designed from the outset as 2'B1. Some derive the name but by the two in 1896 by the Atlantic City Railroad procured equipment from.
As early as 1895 the Atlantic appeared in Europe with the IId series of the Austrian kk priv. Kaiser Ferdinands-Nordbahn (KFNB); the development here was independent of that in the USA .
The Atlantic is a transitional form between the American (2'B) and the Pacific (2'C1 ') type and was only built in comparatively small numbers because the tractive force of the two coupling axles was soon no longer sufficient. During the time of the Atlantics, there was a transition from wooden to steel railroad cars , so that the trains became much heavier in a short time. In continental Europe , where the permissible axle loads were lower than in the USA or Great Britain , most of the Atlantics disappeared as early as the 1920s.
Only 3544 Atlantics were built worldwide - including some conversions from 2'B, 1'B1 'and 2'B2'. 60% of them ran in North America , 12% in Germany . Although Atlantics were built between 1887 and 1939, the actual heyday of these vehicles was much shorter. Nearly 3,000 of the locomotives caused the 20th century in the first decade, and the four 1935-1937 built Giant Atlantics of Class A of the Milwaukee Road and in 1939 Belgium built, also streamlined disguised Atlantics of the NMBS / SNCB Type 12 were special constructions at a time when Pacific and even Hudson locomotives (2'C2 ') had long dominated the express train service.
The Atlantics have some of the fastest steam locomotives ever. Compared to the Pacific and Hudson, the Atlantic has the advantage of lower engine mass, which enables smoother running at high speeds. Noteworthy high-speed journeys are best known from the American Atlantics; for example, an E2 class Atlantic on the Pennsylvania Railroad is said to have reached 204.5 km / h in 1905, a value that in the USA is sometimes given as the highest speed ever reached by a steam locomotive. A Camelback Atlantic on the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad is said to have reached 193 km / h in 1909.
While these speeds - especially those of the E2 - are doubted by experts because the locomotives could not have arithmetically generated the necessary power, this is the 183 km / h that an Atlantic of the PRR class E6s (lower picture) achieved in 1927 , well occupied. The fastest Atlantic ever was, however, very likely the already mentioned Class A of Milwaukee Road, which is said to have speeds of up to 209 km / h, which the construction can be expected to achieve. The Belgian series 12, also mentioned above, was the fastest Atlantic outside the USA with 165 km / h as well as the fastest steam locomotive in Belgium.
literature
- Wilhelm Reuter: Record Locomotives - The Fastest Rails 1848-1950 . Motorbuch, ISBN 3-87943-582-0
- Wilhelm Reuter: The most beautiful of the rails - The history of the Atlantic . Transpress, ISBN 3-613-01512-9
