In a “railfanning” sense, you can’t “railfan” something that doesn’t mean exist.

I just see it as an interesting “what if” to see what could’ve happened and what we ended up with, either for creative differences, traffic decreases, or the onset of the diesel era.

An example of how this fits into preservation is with NC&StL 576. According to the famous trains magazine article on the class in 1963, the ten original J3-57’s were supposed to have full on streamlining. When the locomotives were built, there was heavy inspiration from the class from the N&W’s J class, and they were supposedly intended to have streamlining very similar to what the J’s had.

Unfortunately parent company L&N wasn’t a fan of a hugely increased price tag (I believe $15,000 extra in 1942 money per locomotive) and they gave the N&C two options: go for something more modest or make a home built version. The N&C had tried that with an older pacific and they weren’t pleased, so they went with the more modest “yellow jacket” design. The 2nd batch of the J3-57’s were also supposed to have larger tenders, but that wouldn’t have worked because of the huge costs involved.

From a rail preservation standpoint, yeah it’s pretty interesting to think that 576 could’ve looked completely different. Who knows how famous it would be if it were fully streamlined?

Robert Gottschall's book on the Reading T1s mentions that the Reading considered a 2-10-4 at one point. Baldwin also had a whole myriad of design proposals that ranged from being fairly realistic in concept to a compound quadruplex locomotive with a flexible boiler, two cabs (one on the front for the engineer and one for the fireman) and a 2-8-8-8-8-2 wheel arrangement.

Other concepts that I'm aware of:
-Union Pacific FEF4
-Pennsylvania Railroad 2-12-2 with Caprotti valve gear
-Central Railroad of New Jersey 4-6-6-4
-Great Northern 2-8-8-4

On the diesel side of things, I know Alco had a whole host of machines that never saw production, including the RSD-33 (6-axle variant of the RS-32), the C620, the C624, the C428, and a cowl-bodied C636 proposal for Santa Fe that included both passenger and freight versions and A- and B-units.

As to a Reading 2-10-4, the RDG 2-10-2's were the heaviest 2-10-2's built. The K-1-s-a engines were rebuilt from 2-8-8-2's and the K-1-s-b's were new and slightly heavier. Both classes had 108 square foot grate areas, which is usually supported by a 4-wheel trailing truck, but not on RDG. This is probably your Reading 2-10-4.

And of course the T-1's have 94 sq ft grate areas and DO have 4-wheel trailing trucks.

BTW one of the rebuilt 2-10-2's had Caprotti poppet valves, replaced with piston valves during WWII.

Phil Mulligan

There was a "Diesels Catalogued, but not Built" thread on the 'Trains' forum a few years back that ended up with a pretty long list of models.

https://cs.trains.com/trn/f/741/t/220181.aspx

Maybe one like this?

A Reading 2-10-4 would be numbered 3100, following the 3000 series K-1 2-10-2's, which were themselves a good bit larger than the T-1's.

The photo seems to be a retouched builder's photo of 2100 with a fifth driving axle instead of the second lead truck axle.

I believe the proposed Reading 2-10-4 was built as the K-1 2-10-2 as discussed in my previous post in this thread.

Phil Mulligan

Yes, that's correct, I found a builder's photo of the T-1 in a book and modified it, on the assumption that the Reading shops would apply the same treatment to a 2-10-4. Maybe there are better builder's-type photos of the T-1s somewhere. Thanks for the suggestion about numbering. This is just a "fantasy" creation; I never knew there was an actual proposal for a Reading 2-10-4.

I've noticed that there are a number of drawings within the Baldwin Locomotive Works collection in the DeGolyer Library at SMU, which are labeled as "Proposed" plans:

https://www.smu.edu/~/media/Site/Librar ... adName.pdf

Of course, many if not most of those drawings may have only been "rough drafts," part of the developmental process that eventually led to locomotives that were built later. However, it's interesting to make note of a few which, in spite of the roads' interest in the designs, never did get beyond the drawing board. A few of these include:

-0-6-6-0 for the Lehigh & New England, 1906 (A mallet for the L&NE may have been interesting)
-2-6-6-2's for the Duluth Missabe & Northern (1906), Chicago Milwaukee & St. Paul (1910), and Colorado & Southern (1931). (The last one is the most interesting of the three, drawn up at a much later date than many other 2-6-6-2's)
-2-6-8-0 for the Northern Pacific, 1908. (Perhaps the NP learned from other roads who experimented with this design and wisely chose different Mallets...)
-4-6-2 for the Colorado Midland, 1900 (Would these have been among the earliest 4-6-2's?)
-2-6-4 for the Midland Continental, 1932 (Wonder what that may have looked like; would it have been a tank engine, or possibly a tender engine?...)
-2-8-8-2, Alabama Great Southern, no date
-2-10-10-2, Norfolk & Western, 1926

There was the 2-10-2 proposal that Baldwin made for East Broad Top. I recall seeing the preliminary info on them on this very forum.

I hear stories about a GM&O Garratt proposed for the lines in Southern Illinois. I wonder if any other railroads had garratts proposed to them.

I'd forgotten about those. Wasn't Alco touting some sort of 2-6-6-2+2-6-6-2 "Super Garratt" that was ultimately stillborn?

If there's one place I think a Garratt would have done wonders, it's the Southern's Rathole Division in Kentucky and Tennessee.

Where exactly? Because that certainly would have been intriguing.

About halfway down this page: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=38314&p=240299

Proposal was made in 1915, so before the "big" Mikados arrived. It was 48" drivered with 185psi boiler and 22x24" cylinders