[1] While the wheel arrangement and type name Atlantic would come to fame in the fast passenger service competition between railroads in the United States by mid-1895,[2] the tank locomotive version of the 4-4-2 Atlantic type first made its appearance in the United Kingdom in 1880, when William Adams designed the 1 Class 4-4-2T of the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway (LT&SR).

The tender version of the 4-4-2 originated in the United States of America, evolving from the less stable 2-4-2 Columbia type wheel arrangement, and was built especially for mainline passenger express services.

It was built from 1895 and later became the 308 class on the Imperial Royal State Railways (kaiserlich und königlich Staatsbahnen, kkStB).

[6] Apart from the Austrian locomotives, the Hungarian State Railways (Magyar Államvasutak or MÁV) also operated some Atlantic classes.

In 1939, the National Railway Company of Belgium (NMBS/SNCB) introduced six Class 12 streamlined Atlantic locomotives on the fast lightweight boat trains that ran on the 124 kilometres (77 miles) line between Brussels and Ostend.

[7] Designed by Raoul Notesse to be capable of speeds of 120 to 140 kilometres per hour (75 to 87 miles per hour) and based on the successful Canadian Pacific Railway 4-4-4 Jubilee type semi-streamlined locomotives, but incorporating the ideas on streamlining of André Huet, they were built by John Cockerill at Seraing.

In 1897, 24 6600 Class Atlantics were built for the 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge Japanese Railways by Baldwin Locomotive Works in the United States of America.

In 1897, additional locomotives were urgently required by the Cape Government Railways (CGR) for the section south of Kimberley, at a time when locomotive production in England was being disrupted by strikes, while simultaneously the steamship companies had suddenly doubled all their freight rates to the Cape of Good Hope.

Henry Ivatt of the Great Northern Railway (GNR) also built sixty Class C2 tank locomotives between 1898 and 1907, for use on local and commuter trains in Yorkshire and North London.

Following Henry Ivatt’s GNR Class C1 Klondyke Atlantic of 1898 and John Aspinall's L&YR Class 7 High-Flyer, of which forty were built between 1899 and 1902, a lot of interest was shown in the Atlantic type by British railways during the first decade of the twentieth century, especially for express passenger train service.

Billinton was granted authority to construct a further six examples incorporating Schmidt superheaters, which became the LB&SCR H2 class.

Bearing in mind that this information may become outdated over time, some known examples are: The original Atlantics in the United States were built with the hauling of wood-frame passenger cars in mind and came in a variety of configurations, including the four-cylinder Vauclain compound which had previously been used on express 4-4-0 American, 4-6-0 Ten-wheeler and 2-4-2 Columbia locomotives.

Nonetheless, the Chicago and North Western, Southern Pacific, Santa Fe and Pennsylvania railroads used 4-4-2 Atlantics until the end of steam locomotive use in the 1950s, with some even being used in local freight and switching service.

They tended to oscillate at higher speeds when the drive rods were connected to the rear pair of drivers.

[citation needed] In 1905, Santa Fe engineer Charles Losee was widely reported to have driven Atlantic type 510, a 1904 balanced compound built by Baldwin, the 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometres) from Cameron to Surrey in Illinois with a three car special train in one minute and thirty-five seconds.

These were never used on the road's Rocky Mountain grades; even on the flat plains of Kansas the Atlantics were soon overwhelmed by the weight of the newest all-steel, 85-foot (26-metre) passenger cars.

Despite their excellent performance, most were retired long before other locomotives of their era, and the few survivors wound up on light local trains.

An unusual feature of this locomotive was the drive onto the front coupled axle, which improved riding quality at speed.

[15] In addition, due to the locomotive being designed to operate at higher speeds, the Milwaukee Road’s Atlantics were fitted with Leslie type A-125 air horns instead of the standard steam whistle.