Full Steam Ahead: The Life and Locomotives of Alexander Mitchell

A.A. den Otter is a professor of history at The Memorial University of
Newfoundland, and the co-author of Lethbridge: A Centennial History.

Full Steam Ahead is as much a history of the locomotive as it is the
life story of locomotive developer Alexander Mitchell. Born in Nova
Scotia in either 1828 or 1832, Mitchell worked in a number of machine
shops and on several railways in the United States before he settled
with Lehigh & Mahoney in Delano, Pennsylvania. There, in 1866, he
designed (and Baldwin Locomotive Works built) the Consolidation, a
locomotive of the 2–8–0 format (i.e., it had two small lead and
eight large driving wheels) that was strong enough to haul heavy loads
of coal through mountainous territory.

Initially Mitchell’s design was slow to take hold, but eventually the
engine’s great pulling power overcame its relative slowness. Between
1899 and 1913, for example, the Pennsylvania Railroad ordered 2,230 of
the H–6 version. Meanwhile, various railway companies developed their
own, increasingly larger models of the Consolidation prototype. Among
the last to be made was the fully streamlined 80-foot-long variant model
built in 1930 by American Locomotive for the Hudson & Delaware.

Mitchell also helped develop the large 2–10–0 Decapod. Although the
latter was not very successful, many of the features of the Decapod and
the Consolidation were incorporated in the popular 2–8–2 Mikado
locomotive. This slim and nicely illustrated volume will interest both
railway historians and general readers.