Lehigh Valley 4-8-0 "Mastodon" Locomotives in the USA

Class 565/O-2 (Locobase 15805)

Data from DeGolyer, Volume 16, p. 230.Works numbers were 11681-11682, 11688-11690, 11694, 11697, 11700-11701, 11705 in March 1891.

The Lehigh Valley liked Baldwin's Twelve-wheeler design enough to ask for another ten three years after the delivery of the first fifteen (Locobase 6558). Compared to the earlier engines, these had bigger boilers and a deeper grate.

All served the Lehigh Valley throughout their careers. The 571 was scrapped soon after the turn of the century and before it could be renumbered like the others. The other nine were renumbered in a sequence corresponding to the out-of-order numbering of the original, in which 568 came before 566-567.

All were scrapped in the 'teens.

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Class Champion (Locobase 2847)

Data from Arthur Mellen Wellington, The Economic Theory of the Location of Railways: An Analysis of the Location of Railways (New York: Chapman & Hall, limited, 1887), 410. Also see "Twelve-Wheeled Freight Locomotive for the Lehigh Valley", Scientific American Supplement No 347 (26 August 1882), pp. 5532-5533j and Angus Sinclair, "Motive Power of the Lehigh Valley", Railway and Locomotive Engineering, Volume 20, No 1 (January 1907), p. 37.

The first of the Twelve-Wheelers, this engine was built at the Weatherly Shops to a design by Philip Hofecker, master mechanic. Compared to all of the standard-gauge 4-8-0s that would follow, this was a small locomotive with short tubes, but a relatively large grate for burning anthracite coal.

Sinclair's R&LE report on the Lehigh Valley, authored by a British transplant who established a reputation as a locomotive critic, asserted "The engine was a failure and was a good illustration of what an amateur will do when he undertakes to design a locomotive."

(NB: Hofecker's specs given in the Scientific American Supplement used the inside diameter of the tubes (as in several European railways), which yielded 995 sq ft (92.44 sq m) of tube heating surface and a total evaporative heating surface area of 1,174 sq ft (109.07 sq m).

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Class O-1 (Locobase 6558)

Data from 1921 Georgia, Florida & Alabama locomotive diagram book supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange. See also DeGolyer, Volume 13, p. 173 and Volume 14, p. 103.Works numbers were 8351, 8361-8362 in January 1887; 8365-8366, 8369 in February 1887; 8378, 8384, 8396, 8398, 9036-9038 in March;, 9040-9041 in February 1888. The Lehigh Valley's Sayre shops added 221 and 298 in February and September 1887, respectively.

Fourteen of the fifteen engines in this class served their entire careers on the LV. One, LV #297, then was renumbered #58. In November 1908, the LV sold the 58 to locomotive rebuilder/recycler Georgia Car & Locomotive Company as their #56. At this time the locomotive was rebuilt as a 2-8-0.

In February 1912, the Georgia, Florida & Alabama procured the engine as #203, then renumbered it #199. It's possible that by this time it had been restored to its 4-8-0 status, since the 1921 diagram clearly shows it on twelve wheels. Within a year, the GF&A had retired 199 and it was scrapped.

Donald Hensley, Jr's excellent TAP lines page ("The Home Page for Southeastern Short line, Narrow Gauge and Industrial Railroad History and Photographs") [] (viewed 31 May 2005) shows the full history of its 199.