0-10-0

An 0-10-0 switcher of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad.

In the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotive wheel arrangement, an 0-10-0 is a locomotive with ten driving wheels (five axles) and neither leading nor trailing wheels. Because of that lack, it is not stable at speed and is a type confined to fairly low-speed work, such as switching, transfer runs, slow-speed drag freight, or running over mountainous terrain.

The equivalent UIC classification is E.

United States

The 0-10-0 was not very popular in the US and North America in general; probably less than fifty of this type were constructed. For switching work, large 0-8-0s were preferred, and if more than four driven axles were needed, the preference was for articulated locomotives, such as 0-6-6-0s and 0-8-8-0s. Out on the main line, a 2-10-0, with the added stability of its leading truck, or a 2-10-2 or 2-10-4 with room for larger fireboxes, were preferred.

The first 0-10-0 in the United States was delivered in 1891 to the St. Clair Tunnel Company to haul trains between Sarnia, Ontario and Port Huron, Michigan. Next were a series of 21 locomotives for New York Central Railroad and its subsidiaries for hump yard work. Others included seven owned by Illinois Central Railroad, three by Canadian Pacific Railway, fifteen by Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, two by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and four, the heaviest built, for Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway.

United Kingdom

Two 0-10-0s saw service on British railways; a suburban tank locomotive prototype built by James Holden for the Great Eastern Railway in 1902, called The Decapod, and a tender locomotive, No. 2290, built by the Midland Railway in 1919 specifically as a banker for the Lickey Incline.

Germany

The 0-10-0 type proved quite popular in Germany. Several types of freight tender locomotives of this arrangement were built between approximately 1905–1915 after which it was abandoned in favor of the 2-10-0. Subsequent German locomotives of this type were tank locomotives, including classes BR82, BR87, BR94⁰, BR94¹, BR94^2-4, BR94^5-17, BR94^19-21 and BR97⁵.

Russia

The 0-10-0 type was the principal standard freight locomotive in Russia and was manufactured in very large numbers. The E class freight locomotive was made up of several sub classes all developed from the same original basic machine. The classes included E, Em, Eg, Esh, Eu, and Er. A number of both the Em and Eg received condensing tenders for working in areas where water supplies were scarce, these then became Emk and Egk respectively. The E class was the largest single class of locomotive in the world with around 15,000 manufactured both in Russia and other countries such as Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Poland. This class even far outnumbered the German 2-10-0 Kriegslok. The class was eventually superseded by the SO class 2-10-0, the L class 2-10-0 and the FD class 2-10-2, despite being superseded it was not replaced and the class was widely used until the end of steam in Russia.