The 4th in the series is #2102 but not the engine you may be thinking. This is Lehigh Valley #2102 and seems to be an in-service shot rather than a builders photo.



Again, Thanks for any info or interest............mld

Baldwin 44584 Std 27x28 73” 4-6-2 12/1916 12-48 ¼ -D
Lehigh Valley #2102

Interesting. BOTH 2102's (LV K-5 and RDG T-1) have worked passenger on the same line.

Lehigh Valley 2102 was a big engine and had low (73") drivers for a passenger engine. It was best suited for the line between Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe) and Wilkes-Barre. There are stiff grades Eastward from Wilkes-Barre to Glen Summit (1.8%) and Westward from Mauch Chunk to Glen Summit 1.25%). LV's Mountain Cutoff (now RBMN) bypasses W-B and the stiff grade but passenger trains had to serve W-B and had to climb the grade.

LV had the only Camelback Pacifics, but LV 2102 burned bituminous. RDG 2102's firebox was built for an anthracite-bituminous mix in a 2-8-0 (a really BIG 2-8-0), but in a 4-8-4 it was intended to burn bituminous only.

Phil Mulligan

I have (somewhere) an old reading book which states the T hogs were designed to burn "anthracite culm."

The Wootten firebox was designed in the 1870's to burn culm, the Northeastern PA term for waste anthracite, called gob or boney in soft coal regions. It has far less BTU's than real coal. Culm has a different meaning in the UK.

The grate area of an 1870's Camelback approached that of a mid-20th Century conventional engine. As engines got bigger, the P&R had advanced to lump anthracite by the 1890's and by the 1920's was mixing anthracite and bituminous depending on the use of the engine. By the late 1930's, RDG was using bituminous only.

Your author may have read that the Camelback was designed to burn culm (correct) and simply assumed that was still the case in 1945 (not so).

As an aside, cogen plants now exist that can burn culm. Some are eating their way through the culm banks in NEPA. After all, the stuff's dirt cheap.

Phil Mulligan

Whatever it was burning, 2102 sure chewed it up and spit it out last month on that route to Tunkhannock. Quite a show from on board.

Thank you Phil. The book was published by the Reading for its engine staff so there's no reason to question it's veracity. I have a lot stored now so can't lay hands on it.

Was the book "Firing the Steam Locomotive" with 2100 on the cover?

P

Might be - I inherited a box of books from a relative who worked for the Reading in engine service.

OK

Phil