As a coal hauler the Virginian Railway rostered some massive steam locomotives, including a class of 2-10-10-2 Mallet compounds. In 1944 the railroad acquired eight class AG 2-6-6-6 simple articulateds from the Lima Locomotive Works. They were duplicates of the Chesapeake & Ohio's design known as the "Allegheny" type, but on the Virginian they were called the "Blue Ridge" type. At some 778,000 pounds without tender (the tender alone weighed more than many modern steam locomotives) they were recently determined to be the heaviest locomotives ever built, surpassing even the Union Pacific's famous "Big Boy" 4-8-8-4. The Lima design incorporated a firebox so large, at 135 square feet of grate area, that it required a three-axle trailing truck for support. Such a six-wheel truck appeared only on two modern steam designs, the Pennsylvania Railroad's S1 6-4-4-6 and the S2 direct drive steam turbine 6-8-6 (see Modern Power for Today's Trains in this Rail Archive) although a few older engines had them, such as the Boston & Albany 2-6-6T suburban double-enders that used a small six-wheel truck under the tank portion. Strangely, it appears that the Virginian and C&O versions of the 2-6-6-6 employed solid journal bearings on this huge truck where one might expect a more modern roller bearing application.

With its mammoth firebox and extra-large evaporative heating surface (7240 square feet) and superheater surface (3186 square feet), the 2-6-6-6 boiler was capable of delivering up to 8000 horsepower, the equivalent of about six contemporary diesel units. The Allegheny/Blue Ridge had 67-inch drivers, four 22½x33-inch cylinders, and a boiler pressure of 260 pounds per square inch. These locomotives developed 110,200 pounds of tractive effort and, though capable of fast freight and even heavy passenger service, spent most of their brief pre-diesel lives hauling coal drags. Two of the C&O examples survive. Richard J. Cook took this view of Virginian No. 903 at Roanoke, Virginia, in 1957 and it was published on a post card by Audio-Visual Designs of Earlton, New York, probably in 1969.