Item #7516
14"x17" original painting, mixed media, matted and framed. Signed lower left. 1989. The honor of being the last road engine built in America befell the Norfolk and Western's Y-6b class Number 2200. As with many of the last iron horses built in this country, it was a copy of technology that evolved around 1914. The Y-6 series however, was about as advanced as could be imagined in that all of the latest steam engine appliances were installed. The Number 2200 was an April 1952 product of the N&W's own giant engine facilities at Roanoke, Virginia, where several hundred locomotives were custom built over the years.
The &-6b class sported 300 pounds of boiler pressure, had roller bearings on all axles, weighed in at 600,000 pounds and could run at 55 miles per hour--an uncommon feat for a Mallet with small 58-inch driving wheels. Nonetheless, they could pull a 16,000 ton train and that's what counted!
Number 2200 is illustrated doing what it did best, pulling over 15,000 tons of coal up the Bluefield grade in West Virginia. The 2200 remained in service until 1960.
With all that coal to burn, why should the N&W buy diesels that burned oil? Efficiency--and that's all; but it was enough to cause the railroad to dieselize in a little over a year. Number 2156, the sole survivor of the class, is preserved in the National Transportation Museum at St. Louis.
