European Railroad Discussion > Italian steam query

I found the recent discussion about the Belgian loco very interesting - here is a slightly different question.

I took this photo of an Italian class 625 2-6-0 (built 1914) on a special trip near Siena last year. You will see that while it has outside valves and valve motion, the two cylinders and connecting rods are between the frames. While very many older British engines had inside cylinders, they also had inside valves and I have never seen this arrangement before. (I am from England).

My questions are - have there been any other designs like this in America or elsewhere? What might be the reasons for it? Were inside cylinders ever used in the US?

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Inside cylinders were used on some early U.S. locomotives. By about 1855 this
was discontinued and the cylinders were always on the outside (much later there were some
3 and 4 cylinder locos with some of the cylinders inside but that's another story).
Outside cylinders locomotive were considered to be easier to maintain.

I can't recall seeing any photo of any U.S. locomotive with the arrangment in your
photo (cylinders inside and valves outside).

C.P. Huntington