2-6-2+2-6-2

2-6-2+2-6-2 (Double Prairie)

South African Railways Class GB

Equivalent classifications UIC class 1C1+1C1 French class 131+131 Turkish class 35+35 Swiss class 3/5+3/5, 6/10 from 1920s Russian class 1-3-1+1-3-1

First known tank engine version First use 1912 Country Australia Locomotive L class Railway Tasmanian Government Railways Designer Beyer, Peacock and Company Builder Beyer, Peacock and Company Evolved from 2-6-0+0-6-2

Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives by wheel arrangement, 2-6-2+2-6-2 is an articulated locomotive using a pair of 2-6-2 power units back to back, with the boiler and cab suspended between them. The 2-6-2 wheel arrangement has a single pair of leading wheels in a leading truck, followed by three coupled pairs of driving wheels and a pair of trailing wheels in a trailing truck. Since the 2-6-2 type was often called the Prairie type, the corresponding Garratt and Modified Fairlie types were usually known as a Double Prairie.

The 2-6-2+2-6-2 wheel arrangement was used on Garratt, Modified Fairlie and Union Garratt locomotives.

The 2-6-2+2-6-2 was the second most numerous Garratt wheel arrangement to be built, with altogether 238 examples constructed by Beyer, Peacock and Company (BP) and its licensees. Most of them were built to 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) Cape gauge, 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 ³⁄₈ in) and the 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) or 2 ft (610 mm) narrow gauges. None were built to the 4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in (1,435 mm) , but several were built to 5 ft 3 in (1,600 mm) and 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) gauges.