Lehigh Valley / Ligonier Valley 4-4-0 "American" Locomotives in the USA

Class 17 (Locobase 13932)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Volume 51, p. 317. Works number was 41306 in April 1914.

Although a short short line, the LVRR carried 9 million passengers, most of them headed to Idlewild Park in the Mountain Playground of western Pennsylvania. This design was well-suited to the short-haul, many-stop service required for such a line.

Three years after the first Brill gas-mechanical "doodlebug"came on the property in 1929, however, the 17 was retired in 1932.

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Class 425/E-48 (Locobase 5705)

Data from "Express Passenger Locomotive for the Lehigh Valley," American Engineer & Railroad Journal, Vol LXVII, No 11 (November 1893), pp. 531-534. (Thanks to Frank Toptrain's email to Locobase of , which led him to investigate the class. See also the Railfan.net discussion (http://forums.railfan.net/forums.cgi?board=LV;action=display;num=1390574412, last accessed 30 March 2014), which included discussion of the class.)

Taken from one of those frustratingly nearly specific articles that would at times appear in the American Engineer & Railroad Journal. This November 1893 installment describes a camelback 8-wheeler designed for the LV by its Master Mechanic John I Kinsey "some time since". Also, the heating surface area given as 1,576 sq ft (146.4 sq m) appears to represent only the tube heating surface as measured from the inside diameter of the tubes. (An outside-diameter measurement, which was much more commonly used in North America, yields 1,663 sq ft (154.5 sq m).

The Lehigh Valley roster compiled by William D Edson from data supplied by CT Andrews and GM Best and published in the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society's Bulletin 126 shows four locomotives built at the LV's South Easton shops between 1887 and 1892. Reindeer (#48) came first in May 1887, followed by Rollin H Wilbur (#425, August 1888), 553 in July 1890, and 615 in April 1892. 425 was rebuilt in February 1894.

All were retrospectively classed as E-48s, although 48 was disposed of before 1905. The other three

The article notes that the Reading used this engine on its Royal Blue Express trains between Philadelphia and Atlantic City "with remarkably good results", says the unidentified correspondent. No hot journals were reported, he notes, and the boiler supplied plenty of steam on a schedule that called for speeds between 55 & 75 mph between stops.

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Class 659 / E-43 (Locobase 12143)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Vol 19, p. 210. See also "Lehigh Valley Wide-Firebox Express Locomotive", Railroad Gazette, Vol 27, No (25 October 1895), pp. 698-699. Works numbers were 14231-14233 in February 1895, 14240-14241 in March.

Baldwin's specs estimated lower weights than were reported by the Railroad Gazette; Locobase chose the RG article's numbers.

659 later was given 20" x 26" cylinders and 73" drivers and placed in its own class E-51.

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Class unknown (Locobase 8880)

Data from TraitT pratique de la machine locomotive ... By Maurice Demoulin, 1898

Librairie polytechnique, Baudry et Cie, p 384

The TraitT pratique notes that the design had an extended smokebox, which was seldom used in combination with a Wootten firebox. Locobase estimates the entry date, noting that in any case this was an 1890s camelback.

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Class unknown (Locobase 9713)

Data from Angus Sinclair, "Ratio of Heating Surface to Grate Area and Cylinder Volume," Locomotive Engineering, Volume X, No. 4 (April 1897), pp. 316-318.

It's interesting to compare the grate areas on this locomotive and the camelback shown in Locobase 9712 and then observe that the firebox heating surface areas were nearly identical. Unfortunately, Sinclair gives no class information on either entry, so Locobase can only infer a construction date.