I’ve read that Camelbacks placed the crew in some danger as the cab straddled the boiler directly above the driving rods. Any debris on the rods or sometimes the rods themselves would come loose and penetrate the cab from below, with fatal consequences. But what about the danger of straddling the hot boiler itself? I’ve never read anything about how crews coped with a blazing hot boiler bisecting the cab. To me that would present the more imminent danger. A loss of footing for whatever reason could land a crew member against the hot boiler…or was there some protection to prevent that happening?
The boilers on all steam locomotives have lagging along their length between the smoke box and the fire box. The lagging is insulation so that the boiler doesn’t loose the heat of the heated water that is in the boiler - only a relatively small portion of the the contents of the boiler are steam at any point in time. Thus the engieers area of a camel back has the protection of the lagging from the heat of the boiler. The firman by contrast has to contend with the heat of the firebox and opening the firebox doors from time to time both the add coal as well as observe the status of the fire - the engineers position on conventional steam engines was likely hotter than their location on camel backs.
Death by failed machienry on camel backs was the primary drawback.
It didn’t happen very often, but it did happen.
Another major drawback of camels was the total lack of communication between the engineer and the fireman. Of the Northeastern 'roads the only anthracite hauler that didn’t go in for camelbacks was the PRR. They purchased four just to try the concept out but didn’t keep them long, they just didn’t like the engineer and fireman being isolated from each other. The Pennsy sold them to the Long Island Railroad, who didn’t like them either. What happened to them after that I don’t know.
Camelbacks were never a popular locomotive for the crews who ran them.
Some of the issue with machinery failure was that it was a deadly risk that was not really present on conventionally-cabbed power – and one that might manifest, unavoidably, at any moment.
A concern actually remarked on was that if the engineer became incapacitated, no one might know for miles. I read an account recently of a train that ran 20 miles and passed two stations with “a corpse at the throttle”
If you think a Camelback separates the crew, consider a Henderson quad or quint … or something like the German cab-forward express engines of similar vintage. Those used a perfectly valid maritime solution in the years before telephony or wireless on locomotives: speaking tubes.
Boiler lagging would only partly relieve the issue of heat (although it prevented ‘roasting’ from intermittent contact). If you look up the issues of casing design in one of the Babcock & Wilcox books you will appreciate the issue when radiation from long-term thermal soak in the lagging cannot radiate effectively from the jacket surface. The temperature in a cab even with windows open can go surprisingly high – it is no surprise that you find accounts of Mother Hubbards operated for considerable distances by engineers ‘hiking out’ of the cab window, even to the extent of straddling the sill. (As a fringe benefit that position cleared most of an engineer’s body from the path of any incident rods or debris that might come flailing up, or many of the wooden-warship collateral damage from splinters that would follow [:-^])
Dangerous… or amusing (at least in long retrospect)… accidents could result from this – EDIT: I see Wayne has quoted the exact instance of this I was thinking of!
There was an incident similar to that on the old New York, Ontario & Western. One of their camels ran past two stations where it was scheduled to stop, the fireman said to himself “What the hell…” and made his way to the engineer’s cab. The engineer was gone! Luckily the fireman was able to stop at the next station and send word down the line about what happened.
Turns out (since this was during the summer) the engineer liked to ride sitting on the cab’s window sill, and fell out! He was found pretty quickly, not badly injured.
For some reason the “Camel” locomotive… which had the cab mounted over top of the boiler (instead of straddling it) didn’t catch on. According to Wikipedia B&O tried them as early as the 1840s. With the cab mounted over top the boiler I would think that some of the safety issues of the Camelbacks would have been avoided, and the crew would have had much better visibility as well.
Right, those were the “Winans Camels.” Long story short as far as locomotives go they were an evolutionary dead end for various reasons.
The B&O Museum tells the story:
You could have had the same result with the cab atop the Wootten firebox, in the position seen on the original engine so built, and kept the advantage of the engineer and fireman together (which was NOT the case for the Camels while firing was going on) The answer to both was ‘loading gage’ – even in North America, overhead clearances were limited. As boiler diameter came into ‘hog’ size and driver diameter increased, there was no room for high-mounted cabs or ‘wheelhouse’ visibility all around.
With the coming of stack-train clearances, it would be possible, along with greatly increasing steam separation in a conventional cylindrical boiler, to provide clear-vision or wheelhouse cab design again. These might have the same trouble as the cabs on the large late Virginian and GN GE locomotives: every tunnel might make you want to duck reflexively and you might not become inured to that…
I’ve also heard of locos similar to the Winans being used as “inspection” locomotives for railroad officials.
They clearly had lots of drawbacks, but I love camelbacks; they are so unique. Real contraptions. Ungainly beasts. But posessing a certain beauty.
I think no 6-drivered one was preserved, which is a damn shame.
Kinda-sorta. The inspection locomotives were typically built on 4-4-0 types, and looked like someone dropped a passenger car on one. The “gallerys,” for lack of a better term, ran alongside the boiler and back to the cab.
Here’s one that belonged to the Reading, a 4-4-2 in fact. Imagine the party you could throw in this thing!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspection_locomotive#/media/File:Inspection-locomotive.jpg
Well, they do look cool on a model train layout! I’ve got two O gauge versions, one CNJ and one NYO&W.
If the little guys in the cabs have any complaints they’re not saying anything.
http://www.lionel.com/products/jersey-central-tmcc-4-6-0-camelback-772-6-28748/
Despite the drawbacks, the CNJ did get good service from their Camelbacks, especially the later production models. Powerful, peppy, with good pick-up and acceleration, they lasted in service up until 1954.
I’d seen photos all my life of them, but only realized a few years ago that they were passenger engines. I guess I should have known from the driving wheel size.
Being a fireman on one of those in winter must have been extra brutal. Cruel an unusual punishment.
I can’t speak to other 'roads and all circumstances, but on the CNJ it wouldn’t be unusual to see a passenger Camelback pulling a local freight now and then.
Edison/Biograph caught a few on the LV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4OVeXqSL1k
Of the Camel Backs that remain are: DL&W 4-4-0, Reading 0-4-0, CNJ 4-4-2,
And aren’t those the only ones, period, still in existence?
Yep, them’s the ones.
The CNJ one’s in the B&O Museum in Baltimore, the DL&W one’s in the Transportation Museum in St. Louis. The Reading one’s in Strasburg at this time but I understand it’s been sold to another organization.
There could have been one more, a CNJ 4-6-0. At its retirement the CNJ offered to sell it to anyone interested, but there weren’t any takers. As they’d already donated the 4-4-2 they figured that was enough and sold it for scrap.
IF there’d been “Crowd Funding” back in those days it might have been a different story.
Thanks Becky!
Unless I miss my guess, the opening shots are at Elizabeth NJ, where the PRR crossed over the CNJ. I’m not sure if the CNJ tracks are still there, but the PRR trackage survives as Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.
This footage is something that should have some serious restoration work done, it’s priceless!
I think Trains ran a great feature article (and cover?) on the CNJ 4-6-0 years ago.