Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 37, 2015

In the Whyte notation, a 2-8-4 is a steam locomotive that has one unpowered leading axle, usually in a leading truck, followed by four powered and coupled driving axles, and two unpowered trailing axles, usually mounted in a bogie. This locomotive type is most often referred to as a Berkshire, though the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway used the name Kanawha for their 2-8-4s. In Europe, this wheel arrangement was mostly seen in mainline passenger express locomotives and, in certain countries, in tank locomotives. Other equivalent classifications are: 1'D2' in UIC classification (also known as German and Italian classifications); 142 in French classification; 47 in Turkish classification; 4/7 in Swiss classification; and 1-4-2 in Russian classification.