2-4-2

plural 2-4-2s

1. Under the Whyte notation system, a steam locomotive that has two leading wheels arranged in a leading truck, four coupled driving wheels and two trailing wheels in a trailing truck.

   In 1889 a severe passenger train wreck occurred near Dijon, when a 2-4-2 engine derailed while going full speed downhill.

   2005, Jim Harter, World Railways of the Nineteenth Century: A Pictorial History in Victorian Engravings, page 76

   3 more examples

   Lionel's first tinplate reproduction of a standard Gauge locomotive was a black 2-4-2 steam engine with three red passenger cars.

   2003, Robert H. Schleicher, Modern Lionel Trains, page 48

   Returning in the works staff train to Kingsbridge behind 2-4-2 tank No. 41, we proceeded to Broadstone, former headquarters of the M.G.W.R.

   1962, Geoffrey Freeman Allen, Trains Illustrated Annual, page 25

   The 2-4-2 tank engines of the Great Eastern and the London and North Western were simply adaptations of 2-4-0 main-line engines; the 0-4-4 tank engine owed its parentage to the archaic 0-4-2 mixed traffic.

   1952, Cuthbert Hamilton Ellis, The Beauty of Old Trains, page 117