Balancing of Coupled Locomotives

          In a coupled locomotive, the driving wheels are connected to the leading and trailing wheels by an outside coupling rod. By such an arrangement, a greater portion of the engine mass is utilised by tractive purposes. In coupled locomotives, the coupling rod cranks are placed diametrically opposite to the adjacent main cranks (i.e. Driving cranks). The coupling rods together with cranks and pins may be treated as rotating masses and completely balanced by masses in the respective wheels. Thus in a coupled engine, the rotating and reciprocating masses must be treated separately and the balanced masses for the two systems are suitably combined in the wheel.

          It may be noted that the variation of pressure between the wheel and the rail (i.e. Hammer blow) may be reduced by equal distribution of balanced mass between the driving , leading and trailing wheels respectively.