Talk:0-4-0

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Sections removed

I removed two recently added sections and stored them here, pending possible discussion.

0-4-0 Electric locomotives

I have two issues with this:

This type of article can do very well without a gallery. Really! It can also do very well without pictures of locomotive classes that are not specifically discussed in the article.
Electric and diesel four-wheeled locomotives are rarely described as 0-4-0, rather as B or Bo. The only diesel in the article so far is probably there because it has coupled wheels.

Following is what I removed.

[Begin]

Hellingly Hospital Railway 0-4-0 electric locomotive
English Electric 0-4-0 electric locomotive
North Staffordshire Railway 0-4-0 battery electric locomotive

The UIC classifications B or Bo are commonly used for 0-4-0 electric locomotives.

[End]

Suffixes

I believe this section rather belongs in an article describing different locomotive types, in a section on tank locomotives, than in a wheel arrangement article, since otherwise it will have to be repeated in virtually every wheel arrangement article.

Following is what I removed. (One that's missing is the IST suffix - Inverted Saddle Tank.)

[Begin]

The following suffixes are those used by the Industrial Railway Society.

Steam

For a steam tank locomotive, the suffix usually indicates the type of tank or tanks:

0-4-0T = side tanks
0-4-0ST = saddle tank
0-4-0WT = well tank

Other suffixes include

0-4-0VBT = tank locomotive with vertical boiler
0-4-0F = fireless locomotive
0-4-0TG = geared steam tank locomotive

Internal combustion

For a diesel locomotive, the suffix indicates the transmission type:

0-4-0DM = mechanical transmission
0-4-0DH = hydraulic transmission
0-4-0DE = electric transmission

For a locomotive with a petrol engine, the "D" is replaced by "P".

Electric

For an electric locomotive, the suffix identifies the power supply system:

0-4-0BE = battery electric
0-4-0RE = third rail electric
0-4-0WE = overhead wire electric

[End]

Comments are welcome. -- André Kritzinger (talk) 19:33, 2 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think you are right - the electrics illustrated are not 0-4-0. Also the suffix material does not relate only to the 0-4-0 article. There is a section of the Whyte notation article dealing with suffixes which could be extended. I further suggest that the following sentence be added to the beginning of the section dealing with diesels to clarify why it has been included. 'Diesel (and electric?) locomotives with wheels linked by a coupling rod are also described as 0-4-0.'--Das48 (talk) 07:25, 3 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Novelty was a tank engine

Unless I'm grossly mistaken, Erickson's "Novelty" was a four-coupled tank engine run long before 1850. I'm not editing the article though b/c some editor will just ramdomly change it back Shushimnotrealstooge (talk) 15:14, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Should we add Iceland?

I know, I know. Iceland doesn’t have railways, but they used to. The Reykjavik Harbor Railway (see Rail transport in Iceland for more info on that) used two 0-4-0 tank engines, Minør and Pioner, to haul goods along the harbor. Both were built by the Arnold Jung Lokomotivfabrik in Germany in the 1890s. Both Minør and Pioner are preserved today. But should we include those two on this article? 199.192.122.199 (talk) 04:15, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is what Minør looks like (not my image) 199.192.122.199 (talk) 04:18, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Mostly for the reason that afflicts all of these wheel arrangement articles, they've become photo galleries of 'My favourite loco of this wheel arrangement from my country'. This bloats them into list articles of irrelevant photos, when they should be focussed instead on the wheel arrangement and the issues relevant to that.

For the 0-4-0 in particular, this arrangement was ubiquitous. It's the smallest and simplest arrangement, so it was found everywhere. These two locos are absolutely typical small locos of the type found on every dockside, or harbour construction project. It's an interesting point about Iceland, certainly about the harbour, but it just has no relevance to the 0-4-0 article. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:01, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I do not live in Iceland! Minør is not my favorite engine! Iceland barely has trains and never does as of now, which is why I despise it! 199.192.122.199 (talk) 13:58, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I still think we should add them though. There also used to be another railway in Iceland on a farm but it never used motive power and was eventually closed. 199.192.122.199 (talk) 14:14, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Now how is it useless? They are both 0-4-0’s after all. 199.192.122.199 (talk) 00:16, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously, how is it? 199.192.122.199 (talk) 03:35, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is an encylopedia article about 0-4-0 locos and that wheel arrangement. It needs to explain the relevant aspects for that arrangement: how it came about, what its various advantages and drawbacks are, some of the history of its use (most of which is trivially obvious and simple here, unlike for instance the 2-8-4). It also needs to include some examples. These should be chosen as examples that illustrate the history, or the particular features, of the 0-4-0 layout.

It doesn't need to try and list every 0-4-0 loco ever built. Nor even every maker or country in which they were used. That is not part of an encyclopedic article that explains the wheel arrangement.

Of course the article isn't perfect in its current state. It has far too much emphasis on South Africa. Half of this article would be better as a separate article as 0-4-0 locomotives in South Africa, which would give a much better fit between the content here and the scope of such an article. But would such a narrow article pass WP:NOTABLE ? Still, it's better than 2-6-0 which is little better than 'list of randomly chosen 2-6-0 locomotives'. But we should still try to make this article better, not dilute it further.

A couple of Icelandic 0-4-0s used for harbour construction did not have any effect on railway technology outside their one small railway. They had no lasting influence on 0-4-0s. They do not belong here, because they add nothing to the encyclopedic nature of this article. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:34, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Iceland still had much potential. Not in the article, but in real life railways. So many classes of steam and diesel could’ve been manufactured, those mainline railway ideas in the 1900’s could’ve came to light. More copies of the DRB Class 52 could’ve been built. WHY ICELAND, WHY!!!!! 199.192.122.199 (talk) 15:40, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is a subject for Rail transport in Iceland, not here. Not even one for Talk:Rail transport in Iceland, as article talk: pages are intended for the discussion of improvement to the article, rather than unsourced speculation around the subject. If you can find sources for why (or why not) Iceland should have built railways, then they'd be a welcome topic to introduce.

Why would Iceland use or need railways? It's a famously concentrated population, with 2/3rd living in the Reykjavík region. The main transport route is Reykjavík to Keflavík (i.e. the airport) and that's only 50km. Now that would be the obvious first place to see a railway, and that would likely be electric passenger railcars and a little freight. Hafnarfjörður and the aluminium smelter would be the source of most heavy freight traffic, but that's itself not far from Reykjavík – and has its own dock. Most of Iceland's other freight economy is based on the sea, and you don't need a railway to land fish from a trawler, run it through a quayside processing plant, then export it by ship from an adjacent dock.

Historically, Iceland's economy has had a few boom eras in the 20th century and it's possible that a railway could have been built post WWI and almost surprising that one wasn't built post WWII. The first could have been electric (the technology for 1,500V DC was there) but Iceland didn't yet have the generating capacity surplus that's so distinctive today. The later one might have been diesel (and shipped in directly by the US government) but could usefully have been electric at that point - maybe even a modern 50 Hz AC system.

What we wouldn't see would be a massive iron ore hauling route like that in Sweden. Nor any 2-10-0s. What would they do? There's no work for anything like that. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:36, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I say 2-10-0’s because did you ever think of how many Euro countries copied DRB’s Kriegsloks? Two Nordic countries, Denmark and Norway, adopted the class, so Iceland could’ve done it too. The NSB had NSB Class 63 and the DSB had class N. 199.192.122.199 (talk) 19:32, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why would a country that can't seem to justify any railway then need locomotives the size of the Kriegsloks?

I don't think any countries 'copied' Kriegsloks. Belgium built them, but that was under Occupation (and they continued to complete them). All the others were the general German pool of locos, taken over post-war. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:47, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

BELGIUM IS TYPE 26!!! 199.192.122.199 (talk) 20:07, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]