Lima Super Power

The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway traversed the largest bituminous coalfield in the world, and each year transported fifty to sixty million tons of coal. Much of this vast coal traffic was over mountainous terrain and often on single track, which in the Allegheny mountains reached the maximum track occupation of any American railroad.

It is not surprising, therefore, to find the C. & O. operating an abundance of massive motive power; 160-car trains up to a mile and a half in length and weighing 12,000 tons were commonplace, and in steam days larger and larger locomotives were built, culminating in 1941 in the immense ' H8 ' class articulated machines with a wheel arrangement of 2-6-6-6, the only main-line locomotives ever to employ 6-wheel trailing trucks.

Turned out by the Lima Locomotive Work, forty-five in 1941 and a further fifteen in 1949, the ' H8s ' had four 22in x 33in cylinders, 5ft 7in driving wheels and a tractive effort of over 110,000 Ib.

Eight identical engines were built for the Virginian Railway, capable of handling 12,000-ton trains at 45mph and achieving power outputs of more than 8,000 hp

Numbered 1600 to 1659, the ' H8s ' spent their brief lives heading vast freight trains through the Alleghenies. like No. 1622 here seen blasting through Alderson in West Virginia Despite the unlimited supply of cheap coal, diesel power began to replace steam in the early 1950's, and soon the last of the ' H8s,' in some cases after a working life of only 5 years, were withdrawn for scrapping.