Jawn Henry! No, not the steel-drivin' man (a C&O employee, I'm told!); We're talking about the Norfolk & Western's last stab at preserving coal-burning locomotives. We're talking about a powerful 6-6-6-6 steam turbine-powered locomotive! Announced to the N&W employees in 1949, the N&W combimed with Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton, Babcock & Wilcox and Westinghouse Electric to build the beast known as #2300, "Jawn Henry". Rated at 4,500 horsepower with a starting tractive effort of 175,000 pounds, "Jawn" was perfectly suited to combine the best of steam and electric drive characteristics. The boiler produced 600 p.s.i. steam, which powered the turbine, which powered the generator, which ran the traction motors on each of the twelve axles!

In practice, while the boiler was most effective, the turbine and generator did not meet the efficiencies hoped for. In spite of this, Jawn managed to move more tonnage (try 13,073) on less coal than a Y-6b. The weak spot was the feed-water pump which had to be operated at an over-spec speed and ran to destruction. This required shopping for replacement. Thus, the maintenance down time was excessive, and the experiment was ended in late 1957.