Can you help with details of this old steam loco?

weekendrailroader · **Joined:** Wed Mar 31, 2010 12:02 am **Posts:** 293

My guess is the metal sheet located right behind the water tanks is the side wall of a small fuel bunker. Perhaps there is a second binker on the other side of the firebox too. Steam tractors often used a similar setup: http://www.casesteamtractor.com/lh-rear-quarterOZ.jpg

Kelly Anderson · **Joined:** Tue Sep 14, 2004 7:52 am **Posts:** 2477

Richard Glueck · **Posted:** Fri Dec 04, 2015 1:35 pm

Wow, check that out! Different picture, different locomotive. Same numbering series!

Richard Glueck · **Posted:** Fri Dec 04, 2015 2:14 pm

The image does not appear to be listed any longer, however it was similar to the one I originally posted, both from the same negative.

Reading T1 2124 · **Posted:** Fri Dec 04, 2015 3:31 pm

I happen to have a book devoted entirely to drawings and rosters of Reading steam, including prehistoric and acquired locomotives. It is certainly an ancient "A" class 0-4-0 without an official roster class designation. When I get the chance, I'll reference it directly and get a picture of the drawings.

LVRR2095 · **Posted:** Fri Dec 04, 2015 9:32 pm

Kelly Anderson wrote:

Dave wrote:

Dave Griner told me once of watching a lokey working at an anthicite plant of some sort. He said there was a pile of large anthicite "blocks" that the engineer would stop at, and fill the firebox to the crown sheet with chunks that would barely fit through the door. Once full, off he would go for about an hour and a half until he would make his way back to the coal pile again.

Given the diameter of the cylinders of the engine in the photo, steam consumption wouldn't have been great.

At this web page you can see the Wanamie locomotives of the Glen Alden Coal Co. They are saddle tankers with no coal bunkers. They just shoveled coal from piles located around the property.
http://www.undergroundminers.com/oldwanamie1.html

Keith

J3a-614 · **Posted:** Sat Dec 05, 2015 1:03 am

Reading T1 2124 wrote:

I happen to have a book devoted entirely to drawings and rosters of Reading steam, including prehistoric and acquired locomotives. It is certainly an ancient "A" class 0-4-0 without an official roster class designation. When I get the chance, I'll reference it directly and get a picture of the drawings.

I've got that one myself; it's "Steam Locomotives of the Reading and P & R Railroads" by Edward H. Wiswesser, P.E., published by Greenburg in 1988.

The locomotive in question was orignially an unclassified engine, later was placed in class A-12, and still later would be class A-1. It was one of 11 such engines built between 1866 and 1872 by the P&R, but the caption with this same photograph says this particular locomotive was built in 1879! (Perhaps a misprint, maybe really 1869?) At least the earlier ones had names for small creatures, such as Mink, Otter, Sable, Badger--and Wharf Rat. This one was the Seal, and was later renumbered to 195 (1871?), and still later became the 1201 in 1900. Noting its last number and how old and small it would have been in 1900, I can't help but speculate it may have ended its days as a shop switcher.

Yes, this standard guage engine is quite small, weighing all of 25,500 lbs. Other principle dimensions included 9"x6" cylinders, 34" drivers, a wheelbase of 4 feet, 9 inches, a boiler pressure of 105 psi, and a grate area of 8.4 square feet. Some had their cabs far to the rear, like many other Reading engines of the 19th century that would be considered a variation of a deckless layout, and the Wharf Rat (built 1866, and renumbered to 187 in 1871) not only had a rear cab but level cylinders.

6-18003 · **Joined:** Thu Jun 17, 2010 9:31 am **Posts:** 728

6-18003 wrote:

Looks like a pre-Wooten Millholland design, prob 1860s

Guess I nailed it.

G. W. Laepple · **Joined:** Mon Aug 23, 2004 5:10 pm **Posts:** 1182

According to Rick Bates, archivist at the Reading Co. Tech & Historical Society, this photo is pretty common and was "taken at the ex-DL&W docks in Elizabethport which the P&R leased and operated for a few years after the DL&W pulled out and before the P&R built Port Reading. I believe the water is held in the rectangular tank with "P&R" lettering on the side. Coal was probably taken as needed from a coaling platform on the dock, although its also possible there were small coal boxes either side of the rear of the firebox."

mldeets · **Joined:** Thu Aug 05, 2010 2:06 am **Posts:** 411

Taking another look at the photo it appears the push pole is slid onto a pin on the corner of the buffer beam. There appears to be an identical pin on the corner of the rear buffer beam. This makes me guess there were possibly pins on each "corner"?

Also, nice eye to catch the shovel behind the fellow's foot. mld