The New York Central's class H10 has been called a "landmark locomotive." After the Lima Locomotive Works delivered a demonstrator, Michigan Central No. 8000 (later NYC No. 2090) in 1922, the system responded with orders for 301 additional engines, all delivered during the next two years. The reason for the railroad's enthusiasm was the Lima demonstrator's marked superiority to its earlier 2-8-2 classes, due in part to its having twice the superheating area of the H7s on which their design was based as well as a grate area of 66.6 square feet. These Mikados were distributed across the system, apportioned not only to the NYC proper but also to components Boston & Albany, Pittsburgh & Lake Erie, CCC&StL (Big Four), and Michigan Central.

The H10a subclass, erected by Lima and Alco's Schenectady works in 1922-23, were originally numbered in the 1-190 sequence. In this broadside view we see No. 2222, formerly lettered for the Michigan Central as No. 122, somewhere on its Canada Southern division after the 1936 system-wide renumbering but before the introduction of the NYC's distinctive Gothic lettering that began to be applied to locomotives in 1940. Her rectangular builder's plate, faintly visible above the cylinder, stamps her as an Alco product. For the dimensions of this H1a group, see the commentary for No. 2256. This image came to our New York Central Collection courtesy of Tom Rock of T.D.R. Productions.