Camelback locomotive

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The Erie Railroad's L-1 class were the largest camelbacks built, and the only articulated ones.
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4-6-0 camelback built for the Central Railroad of New Jersey by the Baldwin Locomotive Works.

A camelback locomotive is a type of steam locomotive with the driving cab placed in the middle, astride the boiler. This placement was done to improve driver visibility; camelbacks were fitted with wide, high Wootten fireboxes which would have severely restricted driver visibility from the normal cab location at the rear. These wide fireboxes were fitted to enable the burning of fine-grained anthracite waste, known as culm, which previously had no commercial use and was thus very cheap. Camelbacks were also known as Mother Hubbards or center-cab locomotives.

Contents
1 Development
2 Adoption
3 Safety problems
4 Survivors
5 Owning railroads
6 References

Development

John E. Wootten was the Superintendent of Motive Power for the then Philadelphia and Reading Railroad (later simply the Reading Railroad) from 1866, and General Manager of the system from 1876. He saw the vast piles of anthracite waste in the area as a possible plentiful, cheap source of fuel if he could develop a firebox that could burn it effectively. Through experiments, he determined that a large, wide firebox with a slow firing rate worked best, with a thin layer of the fuel and moderate draft.

The typical locomotive firebox of the day was long and narrow, fitting in between the locomotive's frames. The successful trailing truck and the firebox mounted behind the drivers had not yet been developed. Wootten instead mounted his huge firebox above the locomotive's driving wheels. The problem now arose that with a cab floor at the then standard tender deck height, it would be impossible for the locomotive's engineer to see forwards around the firebox shoulders.

Instead, a cab for the engineer was placed above and astride the boiler. The fireman, however, remained at the rear with minimal protection from the elements.

Adoption

The first camelback, a 4-6-0, was built in early 1877 by the P&R's Reading, Pennsylvania shops. It proved a success; the fuel cost saving was about $2,000 a year (approx. $30,000 now). More were built for many of the railroads operating in the anthracite regions, and some others, of many different wheel arrangements.

The Wootten firebox made for a free-steaming, powerful locomotive, and the anthracite fuel burned almost smokelessly; the combination made for an excellent passenger locomotive, and many camelbacks were purchased for this service.

Safety problems

The camelback was not a very safe design for its crew. The engineer was perched above the whirling siderods, vulnerable to swinging and flying metal if anything below should break. The fireman, meanwhile, was alone and exposed to the elements at the rear. The Interstate Commerce Commission banned further construction of camelbacks, but gave exceptions to allow some to be completed. In 1927, further orders were completely prohibited on grounds of safety.

Many camelbacks were converted into end-cab locomotives; the advent of the automatic stoker and its associated underfloor machinery placed cab floors and tender decks higher, and from that vantage point the engineer could see ahead.

Survivors

Today, only three survive of almost 3,000 camelbacks built; a Central of New Jersey Railroad 4-4-2 at the Baltimore and Ohio Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, a Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad 4-4-0 at the National Transportation Museum in St. Louis, Missouri, and a Reading Railroad 0-4-0 at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, Pennsylvania.

Owning railroads

References

See also: Camelback locomotive, 0-4-0, 1866, 1876, 1877, 4-4-0, 4-4-2, 4-6-0, Anthracite, Articulated locomotive