First steam loco booster?

Thomas Manz · **Posted:** Tue Sep 02, 2003 12:32 pm

I was reading recently that the first booster engine applied to the trailing truck of a steam locomotive was successfully tested on the NYC in 1919.

Is this essentially correct? Any details?

tr2manz@frontiernet.net

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Tue Sep 02, 2003 4:40 pm

> I was reading recently that the first
> booster engine applied to the trailing truck
> of a steam locomotive was successfully
> tested on the NYC in 1919.

> Is this essentially correct? Any details?

"Rail Facts & Feats" by John Marshall says the first boosters were applied to North American two-wheel trailing trucks in 1915 and 4-wheel trucks "after 1925". However, engine-equipped tenders were in experimental use in France as early as 1842 and on a fleet of 50 0-6-0s on the Great Northern Railway of England in 1863. The latter were converted to normal tenders by 1873.

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