Theres a great photo of a number of assorted Reading diesels sitting outside a service area in Philadelphia in this issue of Classic Trains and it got me thinking about what's left in terms of motive power. Besides the 2100, 2101, 2102 and '24 plus the two Camelbacks at Strasburg, are there any other steamers from The Reading left around anywhere? Also, if The Reading built their famed T-1's from rebuilt 2-8-0's, how many 4-8-4's were built from the ground up?

Two camelbacks at Strasburg? As far as I know 1187 (SRR #4) is the only remaining RDG camelback. 1251 is a tank engine, and the "Black Diamond" inspection car round out the remaining RDG steam power besides the T-1s.

Sorry about that Wowak. I don't know what made me think that 1251 was a camelback. I read somewhere that her tender is being tugged behind R&N's #425 as their new road water tender while the old PRR one is (was) on the siding at JT. Any truth to that? Also, what of the T-1's? Did Reading build any from 'scratch'?

According to "Reading Power Pictorial" by Bert Pennypacker, all 30 Reading T1's were converted from class I-10sa 2-8-0's.

And let's not forget the extensive diesel collection accumulated by the Reading Co. T&H Society near/around Reading....... Alco, GE, EMD, and Baldwin......

The Reading water tender behind the 425 was used behind the 1251 for a brief time in York, PA, on Railtours excursions. It was not, however, THE tender for the 1251. It's from a RDG I8 Camelback 2-8-0, originally, and came to George Hart by way of a RDG wreck train, as an aux tender for steam hook.

-MJK

Cool, my work here is done before I even show up.

Thanks to MJ Kershner and ADM IV for that info. I have quite a few shots of the RDG diesels around/near Reading...used to live in Whitehall and would get out to Leesport (or wherever they stored them at the time) whenever I could. When at R&N's 25th Anniversary 2 years ago, a crew member on the back of '02 said that the Reading DID build a few T-1's from scratch...Looks like he was misinformed. He shoulda read the book!
What would have been the largest steamer RDG built in their shops?

(sorry, double-posted.)

Some would argue that the T-1s were the biggest, and really very little of the I10s survived the "rebuild." It was really more of a ploy to get around wartime restrictions on new motive power: the company was denied permission to build new 4-8-4s, but they were allowed to "rebuild" existing power.

The I10s themselves were built by Baldwin, so were the I-9s, so technically I suppose the biggest engines built from the ground up at Reading were the G-3s.

I don't have my Reading RR books handy but I know the K class 2-10-2s must fit into this conversation somewhere. It's a shame that none of the K or G locomotives were preserved. I often think if things played out the right way the G class steamers would have been awesome excursion locomotives.

Let us not forget these two on display at the Franklin Institute!

The Rocket

The Conestoga

Here are the two from the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania;

The Camelback #1187

The Tank Engine #1251

And the Black Diamond at the St Louis Museum of Transportation
Reading Black Diamond (in St Louis, MO)

I believe there is possibly one other, not including the 4 T-1's. It was a scale operating model built by the Reading Shops though I can not recall what it is now where it may be today.

/Mitch

Class K-1sa Engine #'s 3000-3010 were rebuilt from 2-8-8-2 N-1sa and c #'s 1800-1810 (BLW products 1917-1918) in Reading Shops in 1927-1930. K-1sb #'s 3011-3020 were built by BLW in 1931


RDG G-1sa 4-6-2 in 1 1/2 scale (Engine # 111..I think) is also in the Franklin Institute.