STEAM LOCOMOTIVES
When I was ten my family returned to live in Philadelphia. Soon I met a boy named T. Martin Flatley, who was in the same grade in school as I, and who had a passionate interest in the locomotives of the Pennsylvania Railroad. A third young railfan was Bill Barnes, but Bill was somewhat separated from Martin and I because his main interest was in the engines of the Reading Company. For some reason none of us was very much interested in the Baltimore & Ohio, the other railroad that ran through Philadelphia. Martin and I were welcomed by railroad men in every engine yard and roundhouse in the area and thrown out of most of them by railroad detectives.
We "collected" engine numbers. This was slightly less trivial than it sounds because the Pennsy, as the railroad was nicknamed, before 1920 had the unusual practice of giving a new locomotive the number of one that had just been scrapped. Thus number 1 was a small Consolidation (2-8-0) type, class H6sb, while number 8 was a large Pacific (4-6-2), class K4s, and number 16 was a large Atlantic (4-4-2), class E6s. All the numbers in between were taken by other engines of other types; I only happen to remember these three. Each of us, in the common practice of pre-teens, had a "favorite" engine. Mine was number 6872, a class M1 Mountain (4-8-2) type. I haven't a picture of it, but here is a mate, number 6940:
PRR No. 6940, Class M1, Mountain(4-8-2) type
built Baldwin Locomotive Works, 1926
The engine in the right background is a Consolidation, probably class H6a, built
around the turn of the last century, 26 or 27 years before I took the picture.
PRR No. 6797, Class M1a, Mountain(4-8-2) type, built 1930
The 201 M1's were so good that the PRR ordered 100 more Mountain types. They differed from the M1s in having feed water heaters. Also the cylinders and steam pipes were cast into the one piece cast steel frame, forming the bottom of the smoke box. The smoke box netting was also unusual. This scheme was tested on one of the two large Pacific 4-6-2 Class K5 locomotives built in 1929. The latter were never duplicated (PRR passenger locomotive needs were met until after WWII by electric locomotives operating on the Harrisburg-Washington-New York electrified lines). I don;t know how well the K5 ran, but the ten M1a's that were painted with gold striping for passenger service failed in that work. The boilers would not produce sufficient steam at high speeds, so when a heavy locomotive was needed for passenger service, the older M1's had to do the work.
In the summer of 1931 (or possibly 1930) I visited Missouri. I had an Agfa "Memo" camera, a 35mm camera which had a fixed focus lens and took "half frame" pictures. They were 18x24mm instead of the normal 24x36mm pictures of most 35mm cameras. I recently found a roll of negatives from that trip. The pictures are not very sharp! They were taken from the rear deck of the observation car of the Pennsylvania's crack New York - St.Louis train, called "The American". Here are some of them:
The top two are Consolidation (2-8-0) types.
The top left is probably class H8sb or H9s. The top right could be H8, H8a, H8b or H8c.
The middle pair are class M1 Mountain (4-8-2) types.
The first engine on the lower left is class I1s Decapod (2-10-0) type.
I cannot identify the second of these two helper engines pushing a freight.
The picture was probably taken in the Allegheny Mountains.
The lower right picture is a class K4s Pacific (4-6-2) type,
possibly the one that was pulling my train.
As the years passed the time I spent hanging around railroad yards decreased a lot. Even so, I have found a few pictures which I took about 1938-41. Here they are:
PRR No. 9851Class N2sa, Santa Fe (2-10-2) type, built for the United States
Railway Administration during WWI and drastically rebuilt by the PRR.
PRR Class C1 eight-wheeled switcher(0-8-0).
The Pennsy did not build an eight-wheeled switcher from 1880 or so until the mid 1920's.
The C1's were among the largest of the type ever built.
A mechanic, working on the NYC?
A puzzle. This picture and the one below seem to have been taken at the same time as the PRR pictures in this group. But the engine this man is working on has Baker valve gear, which the PRR never used except on the wartime J1 2-10-4's. I don't think I was taking locomotive pictures in engine yards at that time.
The same man on the same engine?
PRR Class I1s, Decapod(2-10-0) type, built Baldwin Locomotive Works, 1923
The second engine is shown below
Another PRR Class N2sa, Santa Fe (2-10-2) type, No. 7104
PRR Class CC2s Mallet (0-8-8-0) type,
built for the Pennsylvania Lines West of Pittsburgh
Still later, in 1945, I had a brief experience trying to advise some PRR men on the prevention of slipping of Q2 engines (4-4-6-4). These were the last steam locomotives built for the railroad, and were, by some measures, the most powerful reciprocating steam locomotives ever built by anyone. Unhappily I had no good ideas on how to solve the problem. These great locomotives had a very short service life. They were replaced in a few years by expensive, reliable, efficient, low maintenance diesel-electric locomotives.
Below are some scans from slides, mostly Ektachrome, which are completely undated.
M1a Mountain (4-8-2) type Number 6726
Obviously this engine almost got away from me. This huge tender was called "coast-to-coast". It wouldn't really make it, but it was big. The first big tenders on the PRR carried 21,000 gallons of water, and were bought with the M1a engines in 1930. Later 25,000 gallon tenders were built for use on K4s Pacific type passenger locomotives, but it was soon realized that carrying all that water around at 60-80 miles per hour was not such a good idea. Most of the 25,000 gallon tenders were used on I1s Decapod type freight locomotives, though I think some were attached to M1's, which had been built with 13,000 gallon tenders.
Another N2sa, The second engine of a doubleheader. The tender of the lead engine looks as if it might have the gold border of an old passenger engine tender.
e-mail:
gfoley@columbus.rr.com
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