Grassroots Railroad Sports?

There's two other G5s as well, one LIRR and one PRR. The PRR engine, #5741, was part of their corporate collection at Northumberland and is indoors in immaculate condition at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

The other LIRR engine, #35, handled the last LIRR steam runs with the #39 and then was donated to Nassau County afterwards. Like the #39, there's been a few attempts to get the #35 operational.Around 1978, the Black River & Western had worked out an agreement to restore #35 for use on their line. I do not know the exact details of the plans but from what I have heard is that there was a concession that the enginee would run a trip on Long Island so many times a year. Supposedly, the owner of the BR&W passed away and the project was not continued after that. A number of members of the local NRHS did work on getting #35 into running order. The running gear was disassembled, the bearings were turned, new or renewed shoes and wedges were machined, and I believe new tires were put on, with the work being done at Amtrak's Wilmington shops. Wilmington would have been equipped for that since they were still servicing GG1s at the time. 

Strasburg also looked into getting #35, went as far as getting a boiler ultrasound test, but Nassau County, who owns it, didn't want it to leave the Island. And then around 1983-1984, the Blue Mountain & Reading (precursor to Reading, Blue Mountain & Northern and Reading & Northern) approached the keepers of #35 to work out a long-term lease for operation on the Hamburg-Temple former PRR Schuylkill Valley Branch, a place where G5s operated and were still remembered 30 years ago. Hopes were high enough to warrant the production of hats bearing a patch with #35 on one side and some diesel on the other side. I don't know the official reason the lease deal fell apart but during the summer of 1984, Mr. Muller purchased #425 and that appeared to be the end of any #35 deal. Presumably it may have run into the same issue that Strasburg had, where Nassau County didn't want it going that far afield.

In 1990, the plan was made to move the #35 to the Oyster Bay Railroad Museum's grounds at the old LIRR Oyster Bay yard and roundhouse, which is where the LIRR G5s spent their final days handling commuter runs. The plan is for a cosmetic restoration, since LIRR and MTA have no interest in allowing steam excursions and I believe OBRM lacks a connection to live rail. But, the plan is to overhaul the running gear to running condition so that if an opportunity arose, the #35 would just need appliance and boiler work to be put into operation.

Nick, this is probably familiar to you, but I just learned about #152 hauling Al Capone to Alcatraz. 
 

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

Well, it's strongly believed that it did, for the Mobile to New Orleans leg. L&N officials swore it did, but, due to the fact that this was a classified operating order for high security purposes, no written accounts are available. Locomotive #152 was, however, assigned to that division at the time, making the claim plausible, if unverified.

Its a pity that an operational restoration of a Pennsy G5 seems....unlikely. They're a neat engine in that they aren't some monster 4-8-4, but a 4-6-0 that will get by on sub-100lb rails, but they also aren't some turn-of-the-century teakettle Ten-Wheeler that can only haul 2 or 3 cars by itself. 

The G5 was a product of Pennsy thinking, which David Page Morgan once described as "there were three ways to build a steam locomotive; the right way, the wrong way, and the Pennsy way." Built at Juniata in 1924, they were some of the final engines built in that wheel arrangement, long since surpassed by the 4-6-2. In fact, by that point PRR had already churned out 275 of their K4 Pacifics, with another 50 being built that year, and another 100 to follow in the next four years. But the G5 had a specific purpose in mind.

At the time, PRR was using the E6s Atlantics for commuter service. These 80" drivered speed demons, which dated back to 1910 and were built at a time when the Atlantic wheel arrangement had also been rendered somewhat obsolete by the Pacific, had worked fine in high-speed express service but had been demoted to commuter runs by the arrival of the K4s and the growing weights and lengths of trains. The E6s was a fine long-distance high-speed engine, but it wasn't well-suited for commuter runs, with their rapid-fire stops and starts. The 80" drivers made them relatively slow to accelerate, and only two drive axles made them slippery and limited their pulling power, and PRR was being forced to doublehead E6s. Theoretically, they could have just built additional K4s and allotted them for commuter service, sure it had those same 80" drivers but they did acquit themselves pretty well on the New Yok & Long Branch and Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines in later years, but when you had the knowledge and manufacturing bases that PRR did, why not build the perfect engine for the job?

PRR was the "Standard of the World" and that was in reference to using as many standardized parts on their steam locomotives as possible, not a bragging right that they were the standard the world was judged against as is commonly believed. The K4s Pacific and L1s Mikado used the same firebox, boiler, trailing truck and other parts. The M1 Mountain and I1s Decapod would also share the firebox and boiler package (although the M1 had a stoker and no feedwater heater, while the I1 had a feedwater heater and no stoker). And the E6s Atlantic and the H10 Consolidation also shared their boiler package as well. The G5 was also chosen to use the E6s/H10 boiler package, which was set upon a 4-6-0 wheel arrangement with 205psi boiler pressure, 68" drivers, 24"×28" cylinders, no feedwater heater or stoker, and a 70P82 tender. By using 68" drivers, the engine could accelerate faster than a K4 or E6s and pull more cars but could still do 70mph, and by not using a trailing truck, more weight was placed upon the drive wheels, allowing it greater traction. PRR cranked out 90 for themselves, and 31 for the Long Island Rail Road, although the LIRR's engines would use a larger 110P82 tender, like was found behind an M1 Mountain.

As was usually the case with initial reports, Railway Mechanical Engineer reported the G5s was meeting exacting schedules and could run at 70 mph because the counterbalancing allowed for such speeds on a relatively low-drivered machine, but once in service for a while, however, the class was considered to be rough riding (a characteristic shared with the I1s 2-10-0), hard on water and hard to fire. Still, the ill effects on the crew were apparently more than offset by the engine's ability to keep a schedule, and hey also often elicited adjectives such as "gutsy," "squat," "tough," or "husky"  they were very successful not only on the Pittsburgh Division, but also in New Jersey, Chicago and Fort Wayne. The class was also not limited to commuter service. Alvin Staufer cites a G5-led milk train that ran 145 miles daily through rural Pennsylvania, trailing an old combine for the occasional passenger Fan trips as early as the 1930s also were headed by G5s, the 'Off the Beaten Track' excursions covering branch lines frequently drew G5s power, since larger engines were prohibited. Work trains were another assignment too menial for mainline power but fine for the versatile G5s.

A LIRR G5 with the larger 110P82a tender. These tenders were specifically designed by William Kiesel of the Pennsy for the later Long Island G5s, and later on, when PRR began building the coast-to-coast tenders for M1s, the now-engineless M1 110P82 tenders were swapped onto the earlier LIRR G5s. No PRR G5s ever used the 110P82a tenders.

Passing a call box on the Octoraro Branch. As near as I can tell, the G5s never lost their slatted pilots or the headlight mounted ahead of the smokebox with the generator mounted ahead of the stack. A lot of other PRR power, especially the K4s and I1s had their front ends redesigned during WWII, with the headlights and generators swapped for ease of service. 

Audio recording of the #1820 demonstrating the rapid acceleration they were built for. 

Double-headed G5s on one of those "Off the Beaten Track" excursions that Pennsy ran, this one on the New Holland Branch.

A lone commuter walks away from a G5 working a Pennsylvania-Reading Seashores Line train at Ocean City.

A G5 leading the Philadelphia-Pottsville-Wilkes-Barre Anthracite Express at Fricks Lock, PA in January of '39. The Anthracite Express, introduced in 1901, was living on borrowed time and would vanish in '41.

G5 #1080 at Monocacy, PA in March of '38, also with the Anthracite Express.

Doubleheaded G5s #5713 and #1960 (yes, despite their being only 90 G5s, they are numbered that disparately, courtesy of Pennsy's seemingly at-random numbering system) passing through Glenmoore, Pennsylvania on the New Holland Branch. Check out the weeds between those rails, this is clearly not the Middle Division.

I will say that I don't think the G5 is a conventionally beautiful engine. It's tall, the boiler and cab seem to overwhelm the running gear, and it's all very front-heavy. But I do think it's a design that looks powerful, like a big cat preparing to pounce.

I mentioned the evolution of the front end of the K4s Pacific. Here's what I'm talking about:

As-built, the prototype, #1737, and early K4s had oil headlamps over the smokebox, round numberplates, and a long wooden pilot.

By the early 1920s, they had moved to this version; still has the round numberplate, but the boxy oil headlamp has given way to electric, and they now have the slatted metal pilot

By the late '20s, they had moved to what some consider the best version, having replaced the round number plate with the keystone-shaped number plate, and a cab signals control box under the smokebox front.

In the early 1940s, many lost the fixed coupler and slatted pilot for the forged steel solid pilot with drop coupler. The main reason for the drop coupler was that they streamlined the appearance of locomotives, and their smooth contours were figured to help deflect objects that the locomotive might strike.  

Then, during WWII, the turbogenerator and headlight had their positions swapped, since the headlight required more frequent servicing. Also, a platform was added for workers to stand on while attending to those item. This was the final appearance update for K4s, and I actually like this version, although some consider it to be ugly. K4 #1361 is being restored to this guise, since that's how it was preserved.

And, yes, there was some mixing and matching, like the #5497 here, which has the swapped headlight and turbogenerator and platform, but still has the slatted pilot.

And if you want a truly bizarre case, in the early '20s, the Lines West of PRR, like the Grand Rapids & Indiana and the Vandalia preferred centered headlights on their K4s. Photos are rare, with them seemingly being camera-shy, and by the mid-'20s, PRR began asserting more of a corporate identity and they were modified to conform with the rest of the fleet.

Another case of a PRR engine with a distinctly un-PRR appearance. That's one of the USRA 2-10-2s, class N2s, that the PRR received while railroads were temporarily nationalized during WWI. The 2-10-2 wheel arrangement isn't widely associated with PRR, and these also had conventional radial-stay fireboxes, centered headlights, and bells over the smokebox. Starting in 1923, PRR knocked off the back of the boiler to install Belpaire fireboxes/boilers, put the headlight atop the smokebox, moved the bell back along the boiler, and added brakeman's doghouses on the tender deck, reclassing them to an N2sa.

Western Maryland Scenic has announced that they've finished machining of the new pistons for C&O 2-6-6-2 #1309, and now are moving on to installation, so hopefully the big Mallet should be running soon.

They've also announced that PBS's Great Scenic Railway Journeys is helping fund the first steps of restoring WMSR 2-8-0 #734. GSRJ is providing a matching donation on all donations up to $10,000 to help kick things off. The #734 last ran in 2015, when it came due for overhaul and became apparent that it was undersized (which is saying something, since a Lake Superior & Ishpeming 2-8-0 is a beast of an engine) and was badly worn out. WMSR set the #734 aside in favor of the #1309, but is now looking into returning the #734 in operation. I suspect the plan is to get it running so that it can operate on their recently acquired Georges Creek Division that they will be restoring to service.

The #734 was originally built as Lake Superior & Ishpeming #18 in 1916, later renumbered to #34 and classed asa SC-1. These were big ore-hauling Consolidations, with Baker valve gear, 57" drivers and 26"x30" cylinders, and they weighed 435,000 lbs total and thumped out  55,900lbs of tractive effort. They had 88" diameter boilers, which forced them to have very short stacks and domes and the bell to be mounted offset on the side of the boiler. They also had number plates on the smokebox and headlights mounted over the smokebox, and a big Worthington feedwater heater slung under the fireman's running board, resulting in a pretty ungainly looking machine, all around. This photo of sister engine shows what the #34 looked like as-built.

Western Maryland Scenic Railroad acquired the #34 in 1991, and during the restoration, they made quite a few changes to make it resemble a Western Maryland H-9 Consolidation. The headlight was center up, cab side sheets were replaced with ones with WM-style windows, the Worthington BL feedwater heater was replaced with a cross-compound air pump, and the original tender was swapped out with one off of an NYC Mohawk. And while the #34 is big for a 2-8-0, it still pales in comparison to the H-9 it was made to resembler, which weighed 595,510lbs, had 61" drivers, and generated 68,263lbs of tractive effort.

A genuine article WM H-9 2-8-0 for comparison. The #734 is honestly pretty close in appearance and without a real H-9 to park it next to, you would never know the size difference.

Western Maryland and Baldwin also took the H-8 design, added another drive axle, and turned out the monster I-2 Decapod. With 61" drivers, 240psi boiler, and 96,315lbs of tractive effort, these were a real tonnage mauler and probably the best engine that the WM had for their mountainous terrain and coal- and ore-hauling operations. Their only handicap was their long wheelbase and heavy axle loading which prohibited them from any number of spurs and branches, and they were absolutely murderous on the roadbed. The running gear was heavy and not well balanced, and it was nearly impossible to run the I-2's at speeds above 40 MPH, and certainly not pleasant to be going that fast. At one time there was an order that anytime an I-2 slipped its drivers, the engineer was required to note down the milepost location and report it at the end of his run, so that the section gang could be sent to look for broken and damaged rails. On one occasion an engineer on the Baltimore line got mad at his slipping I-2 and allowed it to continue slipping. The MoW department was not amused when they went out and found that 13 rails had to be replaced due to the damage. The I-2 was also operated in pool service over the Reading Railroad between Lurgan, PA and Rutherford, PA. The Reading, tired of replacing damaged rails, once banned the I-2 from their railroad. WM answered by banning the Readings equally heavy and poorly balanced 2-10-2's from their railroad, since the Reading used the WM's rails to Hagerstown. It did not take long for the railroads to determine it was better to put up with each others locomotives than to lose the territory for their own, and the bans were lifted shortly after. (And the reason the WM and Reading shared rails was that B&O owned the WM and had a controlling interest in the Reading, largely to access the CNJ's Jersey City facilities, since the Reading had a controlling interest in the CNJ).

The #1126 is shown battling famed Helmstetter's Curve, with an M-1 4-6-6-4 shoving on the tail end. The M-1 was not as successful as the I-2, disliked by crews and just not a good fit for WM's operating profile. Not a bad engine, but improperly utilized.  

The #1119 in an excellent roster shot taken at Ridgely, WV. The sand coating the running gear shows the sheer size of the counterweights, which attempted to balance out those huge rods. Over the years the WM improved their Decapods with light weight rods and re-balancing, and some received new disc main drivers. While never really sanctioned by the railroad, enginemen soon found their improved Decapods could be operated at speeds of 45 and even 50 MPH. The railroad also raised steam pressure from the original 225 PSI to 240 PSI resulting in a 6000 pound increase in tractive effort, and added thermic syphons, a nonlifting injector paired with an exhaust steam injector, and improved lubrication systems. The design was also duplicated over on the L&NE, who ordered identical engines for their own operations. One has to wonder how much Baldwin's experience with the Pennsy's I1 2-10-0s factored into the success, and power, of the WM's I-2s.

An I-2 Decapod near Deal, PA with a 100 cars headed east. I remember reading a remark from a boilermaker who had worked for the WM, PRR and N&W which was, and I might be paraphrasing a little, "Western Maryland made an average engine and gave it excellent care, PRR built an above average engine and gave it average care, and N&W built an excellent engine and gave it no damn care at all." 

One of the WM's M-1 Challengers, the final steam locomotives purchased by WM and among the first retired, at Williamsport, Maryland. Really not a bad design, they were poorly utilized by the Western Maryland. Known, and disliked, as slippery and hard-to-handle brutes, the problem arose from what Bert Pennypacker described as "misplaced expectations". The design, with high drivers and light axle loads, wasn't really suitable for WM's style of heavy running. The WM probably would have been far better off with the likes of an engine such as C&O's rugged H-7 2-8-8-2s for mountain-lugging, or B&O's outstanding EM-1 2-8-8-4 which could have boosted all tonnage rating by at least 1,000 while offering a 50 mph capability in the Potomac Valley.

The Western Maryland is kind of a sad case. A pretty brilliantly-engineered railroad, wildly independent, and priding itself on fast freight service, it's mostly abandoned nowadays as a result of it's corporate ownership by B&O. It's western end from Cumberland to Connellsville was, from an engineering standard, far superior in ruling grade and curvature over the B&O. It's port facilities at Baltimore were extremely well-developed, better than anyone else's. It served a critical link in the "Alphabet Route", a joint venture of smaller railroads to combat the Big Four of the Northeast (NYC, PRR, Erie, B&O) with Chicago-St. Louis-Toledo-Pittsburgh-Philadelphia-New York City-Boston service.

But, the B&O control of the WM became an issue once B&O and C&O entered the Chessie Systems partnership, dragging the WM with it. The WM paralleled a lot of the B&O, but while the B&O had more curvature and grades, the B&O was all double-tracked, while a lot of the WM was single iron (although clearly it was built with the intent to be double-tracked). Chessie's choice was, should we spend millions to double track Salisbury Viaduct and the tunnel. or tear the railroad up and get several million dollars' worth of relay rail and scrap? The WM line's problem was that it was also a more expensive line to maintain, with more tunnels and bridges than the B&O. Another problem was that it's superior grade came from being routed along ridges, rather than in the valleys where the towns were and the B&O line is. It was a good bridge line, but weak in on-line revenue.

I've also heard, although not been able to prove, a theory that Chessie System tore up the WM to keep it out of the N&W's hands. B&O owned majority of WM stock but it was in a trust per the ICC, so the WM ran as an independent railroad, and the WM hauled a lot of N&W traffic, connecting with the old P&WV at Connellsville, and giving N&W port access at Baltimore. Chessie System began ripping up the WM in 1975, right around when the USRA was planning the Final Systems Plan that would become Conrail, and the theory goes that since the USRA was going to give Chessie the east end of E-L, the CNJ and the Reading, they may have forced them to hand over the WM to N&W to balance things out. By tearing up the WM, they got rid of "excess capacity", reduced taxes, got rails to re-lay, and kept the N&W from getting hold of it. True? Who knows, but Chessie Systems sure didn't waste time yanking down bridges and dynamiting tunnels.