Editing 2-6-0 (section)

==Overview==
In the United States and Europe, the 2-6-0 wheel arrangement was principally used on [[tender (rail)|tender]] locomotives. This type of locomotive was widely built in the United States from the early 1860s to the 1920s.

Although examples were built as early as 1852–53 by two [[Philadelphia]] manufacturers, [[Baldwin Locomotive Works]] and [[Norris Locomotive Works]], these first examples had their leading axles mounted directly and rigidly on the frame of the locomotive rather than on a separate truck or [[bogie]].<ref name=Hunt/> On these early 2-6-0 locomotives, the leading axle was merely used to distribute the weight of the locomotive over a larger number of wheels. It was therefore essentially an [[0-8-0]] with an unpowered leading axle and the leading wheels did not serve the same purpose as, for example, the leading trucks of the [[4-4-0]] American or [[4-6-0]] Ten-Wheeler types which, at the time, had been in use for at least a decade.

The first American 2-6-0 with a rigidly mounted leading axle was the ''Pawnee'', built for heavy freight service on the [[Reading Company|Philadelphia & Reading Rail Road]]. In total, about thirty locomotives of this type were built for various American railroads. While they were generally successful in slow, heavy freight service, the railroads that used these first 2-6-0 locomotives didn't see any great advantages in them over the [[0-6-0]] or 0-8-0 designs of the time. The railroads noted their increased pulling power, but also found that their rather rigid suspension made them more prone to derailments than the 4-4-0 locomotives of the day. Many railroad mechanics attributed these derailments to having too little weight on the leading truck.

The first true 2-6-0s were built in the early 1860s, the first few being built in 1860 for the [[Louisville and Nashville Railroad]]. The new design required the use of a single-axle swiveling truck. Such a truck was first patented in the United Kingdom by [[Levi Bissell]] in May 1857.<ref name=Hunt/>

In 1864, William S. Hudson, then the superintendent of [[Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works]], patented an equalized leading truck that was able to move independently of the driving axles. This equalized suspension worked much better over the uneven tracks of the day.{{clarify|date=June 2022}} The first locomotive built with such a leading truck was likely completed in 1865 for the [[New Jersey Rail Road and Transportation Company]] as their number 39.

The locomotive class name likely derives from a locomotive named ''Mogul'', built by [[Taunton Locomotive Manufacturing Company]] in 1866 for the [[Central Railroad of New Jersey]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2022}} However, it has also been suggested that it derived from [[GER Class 527#Prototype|the British 2-6-0 engine of that name]], the prototype of its class, built by [[Neilson and Company]] for the [[Great Eastern Railway]] in 1879.<ref name=Allen>{{cite book |last=Allen |first=Cecil J. |title=The Great Eastern Railway |edition=2nd |year=1956 |orig-year=1955 |publisher=[[Ian Allan Publishing|Ian Allan]] |location=Hampton Court |page=96 }}</ref><ref name=GERS>{{cite web |title=The Adams Era |at=No. 527 Class 2-6-0 1878-1879 |publisher=Great Eastern Railway Society |url=http://www.gersociety.org.uk/loco/adams.htm#527c |access-date=2008-04-29 |archive-date=2007-09-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070921125726/http://www.gersociety.org.uk/loco/adams.htm#527c |url-status=dead }}</ref>