Posing on the turntable is Chesapeake & Ohio 2-6-6-2 Mallet compound No. 1404. Outshopped by American Locomotive Company in 1918, the locomotives of class H-4 rolled on 56¼-inch drivers, weighed 449,000 pounds, and developed a tractive effort of 77,900 pounds. They had a boiler pressure of 210 pounds per square inch, and their cylinders had a 32-inch stroke; the high-pressure (rear) cylinders had a diameter of 22 inches, while that of the low-pressure (front) cylinders was 35 inches to accommodate the expanded, re-used steam. Their grate area totaled 73 square feet, their evaporative heating surface 4900 square feet, and their superheater surface 975 square feet.

The C&O was a heavy user of these 2-6-6-2 compounds on its coal-mine branch lines, buying new locomotives of the same basic design as late as 1949; the ten members of the H-6 class delivered that year by Baldwin Locomotive Works were the builder's last steam order for service in North America. Tom Rock of T.D.R. Productions contributed this image, from an unknown photographer, to our Archive. The location is Cheviot Yard, Cincinnati (the D. H. Willey Lumber Company, whose sign is atop the building to the right, was located there). The date is prior to 1943-44, when the C&O started using prominent number boards mounted atop the smokebox. (These last details were provided by respondents on the Railway Preservation News forum.)