Click here for the introduction to Articulated Steam Locomotives of the World.
Wiener classified true Articulated Steam Locomotives in
three parts:
1. Articulated Locomotives having
one driven and one undriven bogie - eg single Fairlies
2. Articulated Locomotives with one
engine and two driven bogies - eg geared locomotives such as Shay, Climax,
Heisler
3. Articulated Locomotives with two
engines and two two sets of driving wheels - eg double Fairlies, Meyers,
Garratts (updated 17th December 2019)
1. Articulated Locomotives having
one driven and one undriven bogie - eg Single Fairlies Most
Fairlies were 'doubles' (see elsewhere), singles were built in relatively smaller
numbers. For a description of Fairlie locomotives in general see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairlie,
it has a section on single Fairlies. The Festiniog
Railway has a replica single Fairlie built in 1999, see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ffestiniog_Railway
and specifically http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ffestiniog_Railway_rolling_stock.
These photographs are courtesy of James Waite.
There
is a single Fairlie preserved at Reefton in South Island, New Zealand, this
is Ray Schofield's picture: 
Mason
built locomotives of this type (Mason Fairlies) see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_Bogie
and one is reported active at the Henry Ford
Museum - also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Henry_Ford.
This is Alex Mayes' July 2009 picture:
2a. Articulated Locomotives with one
engine and two driven bogies - eg geared locomotives such as Shay, Climax,
Heisler Geared locomotives were almost exclusively built in the
USA for operation on logging railways although they were exported in some
numbers for use on such systems in East Asia and Australasia. The last
working examples in the world were Shays found up to the 1970s and even just
into the 1980s on the Alishan Forestry Railway in Taiwan and on logging
railways and sugar mills in Negros, Phillipines. An excellent general
resource for these locomotives is http://www.gearedsteam.com/index.html
which has dedicated sections for each of the American builders. For a more
international view, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geared_steam_locomotive,
this necessarily covers non-articulated locomotives. Given the massive web
coverage of North American geared locomotives, I have deliberately tried to
look further afield for my examples, as Tom Schultz put it to me "Many Shays,
a handful of Heislers and even a few Climax locomotives are serviceable. Numerous
Shay, Heisler and Climax locomotives are preserved, not serviceable. Web-based lists of these locomotives are easy to find and
access, I found a page which showed no less than 15 Climax, 28 Heisler, 82 Shay and 6 Wiliiamette
geared locomotives! I have now added (28th March 2013) a
page of preserved American geared locomotives,
courtesy of Donald Nute.
The Shay Locomotive - see http://www.shaylocomotives.com/
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shay_locomotive
Shay geared locomotives were built by the Lima
Locomotive Works in some numbers, vertical cylinders driving a
crankshaft to which were attached gears acting on geared driving wheels,
with a boiler offset to one side. They were broadly classified by the
number of 'trucks', each with four wheels one of which was under the
tender (two in the case of the D type).
Type |
Trucks |
Cylinders |
A |
2 |
2 |
B |
2 |
3 |
C |
3 |
3 |
D |
4 |
3 |
Shays were built for a variety of gauges from two foot
(610mm) to standard. This is a 762mm (2' 6") gauge 2 truck example
at Alishan in March 1976, courtesy of Nicholas Pertwee, at that stage
the Shays on the line were used only for short workings and shunting:
Those from the Philippines shown below were all
1067mm (3' ft 6") gauge. This two truck
Shay was the last such working example on Negros, it was based at
Insular Lumber's Hinobaan wharf as #10 where it was photographed by
Peter Nettleship:: 
Earlier
the late Basil Roberts found the sun on the 'wrong' side of this similar
engine #2 at Fabrica in 1974: 
The
company disposed of a couple of 3 truck Shays to the nearby Lopez sugar
mill, Basil Roberts saw their #9 at work on the same trip. 
By
1979, #9 and 10 faced in opposite directions and worked alternately. On
my trip in February 1979, we had the sun on the wrong side the previous
afternoon and had to make the long trek back next morning. It was worth
it! 
Of
the nearly three thousand built, there are more than one hundred
surviving Shays - see http://www.shaylocomotives.com/surviving/SLc-Survivors.htm)
and it's not too hard to find one working in North America at least.
Among those 'preserved' railways known to have at least one in working
order are:
Alishan Forestry Railway - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alishan_Forest_Railway Cass Scenic Railway
- http://www.cassrailroad.com/
Roaring Camp and Big Trees Railroad
- http://www.roaringcamp.com/
Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad - http://www.ymsprr.com/
Georgetown Loop Railroad - http://www.georgetownlooprr.com/
(likely to be new for 2011 with a Shay from Midwest Central Railroad, of Mount Pleasant, Iowa)
Foster Brook and State Line Railroad, Bradford, PA
This is a small private 610mm (2ft) gauge railroad
with intermittent operation which has the smallest Shay ever built
by Lima. These pictures of it working on 31st October 2009 are
courtesy of Kermit Geary, Jr. 
The Willamette Geared locomotive - see http://www.gearedsteam.com/willamette/willamette.htm
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willamette_locomotive
These are essentially Shay look alike locomotives built
after the original Shay patent expired with some improvements. Thirty
three were built and some six survive, they are listed here (scroll down) http://www.shaylocomotives.com/surviving/SLc-Survivors.htm.
Only one is operational at the Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad - http://mtrainierrailroad.com/
This is an official MRSR picture of the locomotive after restoration at its first public showing in
August 2009:
The Climax Geared locomotive - see http://www.climaxlocomotives.com
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climax_locomotive
Compared with Shays, these were slightly more
conventional! The locomotives have cylinders (mainly inclined but also
horizontal or vertical) on both sides which are attached to a
transmission shaft under the locomotive which drives two (sometimes
three) trucks, one under the smokebox, the other one/two under the
tender. Of the one thousand or so built, some
twenty are said to survive in North America and half a dozen in
Australia and New Zealand, see http://www.climaxlocomotives.com/surviving/.
This one is at Shantytown, Greymouth on South Island, New Zealand in
2002, it was certainly in operating condition then, I have heard nothing
to the contrary since. 
On
the other hand, this example at Pukemiro on North Island was some way
off being a runner when I photographed it in 2002: 
Other
sites with potentially operational Climax locomotives:
Cass Scenic Railroad State Park - under restoration
2009 - http://www.cassrailroad.com/ Durbin and Greenbrier Valley Railroad,
West Virginia - http://www.mountainrail.com/,
this is David Longman's picture from April 2003: 
Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad
- http://www.mrsr.com/ link found broken on 27th October 2017
now http://mtrainierrailroad.com/ Roots of Motive Power, California
- http://www.rootsofmotivepower.com/ Puffing Billy Railway,
Victoria, Australia - under restoration 2009 and active from August 2013 - http://www.puffingbilly.com.au/.
The pictures below are from Robert Wilson, see also http://members.ozemail.com.au/~telica/Puffing_Billy_Climax_1694.html
(Link broken by December 2023. RD)
The Heisler Geared Locomotive - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heisler_locomotive
and http://www.gearedsteam.com/heisler/heisler.htm
These differed from the geared locomotives above
principally in that they still use coupling rods, characteristically they
have a V shaped cylinder arrangement operating on a central shaft. Some 30
are known to survive in North America and about a third are likely to be
operational at any time. Elsewhere, there are several in New Zealand at
Shantytown, Ferrymead Park in Christchurch and Pukemeiro. None is remotely
near being a runner at the time of writing, this is the Heisler at
Pukemiro photographed in 2002:
This is Wilson Lythgoe's picture of the one
at Ferrymead in steam back in January 1969. Its boiler certificate expired
shortly after and I believe it has not run since... (added 9th July 2013)
This example was photographed by Martin E.
Hansen on the Sumpter Valley Railway - http://www.sumptervalleyrailroad.org/
- in Oregon, USA in 2011:

Hunslet Engine Company, Leeds, England
The British were not greatly into geared locomotives
but Avonside built a few for South Africa and after their business was
taken by Hunslet in 1934 they also built one for the same market.
See http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/hunslet/hunslet.htm.-
the principal difference being that the Avonside used a worm drive and
the Hunslet bevel gears like the American locomotives. The picture shown
on the site above actually shows an Avonside locomotive (dated as
delivered 1931 before that company closed). All of these
locomotives postdate Wiener's
book although the same picture is in Binn's
Bradford Barton Book, see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avonside_Engine_Company.
One of these locomotives is now reported to be in the care of the
Phyllis Rampton Trust in the UK -see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_Rampton_Trust.
There are several pictures of this type on this
wonderful website, a real treasure trove - http://steam-locomotives-south-africa.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/miscellaneous-cane-tramway-images.html.
A & G Price of Thames, New Zealand
This company produced clones of Climax and Heisler
locomotives (see above), as far as I know none left the country.
This
one is a Climax look alike (Price E class) at Pukemiro next door to the
real thing (seen above) in 2002: 
Fortunately,
this Heisler lookalike was in much better health when I photographed it
in action at the McLean's Island site of the Canterbury Steam Preservation
Society, it was the only 'Heisler' they built:
This is a Price Cb class in action at Pukemiro (Ray
Schofield photograph), it is said to have been based on a Climax A type
with vertical cylinders (out of sight), it is a significant locomotive as
I do not think there are any Climaxes like it surviving in original
condition. Similar locomotives survive at Tokomaru and Ferrymead
(Christchurch).
2b. Miscellaneous New
Zealand Locomotives
There are references above to New Zealand
built locomotives which are copies or derived from products of other
makers (usually American). However, an indigenous industry grew up which
built locomotives which owed nothing to foreign influence. There is an
excellent website which details both types - http://www.trainweb.org/nzgearedlocomotives/index.html. This
is John Raby's 2016 picture of the sole surviving Davidson which is
preserved on the road between Greymouth and Reefton.
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