The Atlantic Coast Line R-1 was a class of 12 4-8-4 Northern type steam locomotives built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1938 and operated by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad until the early 1950s. They were immediately assigned to passenger service but eventually saw service pulling freight.
Upon delivery to the Atlantic Coast Line, the locomotives were immediately put in passenger service due to an increase in passenger business in the 1930s. Their P-5-A class Pacifics could not handle more than 12 passenger cars and would require double-heading. The R-1s handled passenger trains up to 21 heavyweight cars, eliminating the need for double-heading and ran extra sections of many of the Richmond, Virginia to Jacksonville, Florida passenger trains. While they were more powerful than their Pacifics as well as being faster, running as fast as 90 mph and probably 100 mph without much trouble reaching such speeds, the ACL was very disappointed with them, as they had poor counterbalancing and were returned to Baldwin to solve the problem. When delivered, they had a bad dynamic augment. Even after the rebuild with new disk driving wheels, they still had unacceptable amounts of dynamic augment at high speeds, as their counterbalancing weights were too high, which led to the locomotive's drivers pounding at high speeds and was said that the main drivers actually left the rails and repeatedly slammed back down, kinking rails and damaging track alignment for miles.
Despite their flaws, they were capable pullers. No. 1800 accelerated a 20-car, 1500-ton passenger train from a dead stop to 70 miles per hour in 11+1⁄2 minutes and 11 miles in a test. The class also ran as many as 18,000 miles a month in passenger service. R-1s Nos. 1800, 1801, 1806, 1807, 1808 and 1809 ran even more smoothly once they were fitted with lightweight pistons by Timken, piston rods, cross heads, and, probably most important, tapered main rods with roller bearing wrist pins. The class is rated at 6,200 tons on the Richmond to Jacksonville mainline.[1] With dieselization taking effect, the locomotives were put in freight service. Retirement started in 1951 and by 1952, all have been retired.[2]
The R-1 class were equipped with very large tenders holding 24,000 US gallons (91,000 L; 20,000 imp gal) of water and 27 short tons (24 long tons) of coal. They were mounted on a pair of eight-wheel trucks. The weight of the tender, fully loaded was 217 short tons (194 long tons)[3] In 1953, ten of the R-1 tenders were sold to the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W), where they were paired with their Y4 class2-8-8-2 compound mallets, until they were all scrapped in 1958.[4]
Griffin Jr., William E. (2001). Atlantic Coast Line: The Standard Railroad of the South (1st ed.). TLC Publishing. ISBN978-1-883089-62-7.
Prince, Richard E. (2000). Atlantic Coast Line Railroad: Steam Locomotives, Ships, and History (2nd ed.). Indiana University Press. ISBN978-0-253-33694-1.
