Erie & Wyoming Valley 4-4-0 Camelback, 1880s
Saturday, September 26, 2009 at 11:38AM
Timebinder in STEAM LOCOMOTIVES

This lovely little 4-4-0 Camelback engine, No. 14, of the Erie & Wyoming Valley Railroad is the first antique photo I ever bought nearly 40 years ago, a large mounted cabinet print in its original frame; likely a professional company photo, it is in pristine condition. It sits on the turntable at a large roundhouse, but I have not yet discovered where that was located.

It took me several years to discover that E&WV was the Erie & Wyoming Valley RR which superseded a gravity line when it was converted to steam by the Pennsylvania Coal Company, chartered under that name as early as 1864, but not completed until perhaps 1884 (?). It was primarily an anthracite coal hauling line into Pennsylvania's coalfields, but it also ran express passenger trains on parts of the division every day of the week except Sunday. History on the web for this company is sketchy at best, but it was purchased by the Erie Railroad in 1901, yet it had always had a connection as an extension of the Erie's far-reaching lines which eventually went to Chicago (railroad history is convoluted at best).

I have seen one other photo of an E&WV camelback, No. 16, but it was a 4-6-0 configuration which was more common to coal hauling, so I think this smaller one was early and may have been for passenger service. The camelback is one of my favorite engine configurations (in the late 1970s I scratch-built my own running 4-4-0 camelback model engine based on this photo because it wasn't available on the market, most model examples being 4-6-0).

Article originally appeared on Antique Photography & Photo Collecting (http://timebinder.net/).
See website for complete article licensing information.