Rebuilt RDG 616 (ex-603) now has a non-lifting injector under the cab on the fireman's side and a top-feed check valve. The sand dome has migrated to where the cab had been.

Note also the Caprotti poppet valve gear.

Phil Mulligan

Kelly, here's #4 down at Birdsboro demonstrating at least four out of the six axes of motion not too long before you guys got ahold of it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pmRy0KkCRg

And yeah, when driving a Reading road camelback at track speed, you might not have anywhere to bail after a rod cuts loose, except perhaps straight out the front door, but then that running board looks like two-inch thick boiler plate underneath the cab there...

The engine is an I-8-s-b 2-8-0. The last one was retired in 1948.

As to a previous discussion, note the twin feedwater lines from the cab to side-by-side check valves.

The engineer is sitting "up on the cab" on the armrest. That's essential to see around the firebox when backing but optional going forward. The radius rod has him in reverse. See the crewman on the tender to pass signals.

The alternate escape route is up through a door leading to the walkway along the firebox then down the backhead and onto the tender.

Phil Mulligan

Something to keep in mind, is that camelback locomotives were also referred to as Mother Hubbard or double-cab type locomotives by the ICC and in state legislation. The most frequent use of the term cameback that I have seen in printed works from this time are references to the locomotives designed by Winans for the B&O in the 1850s.

Here is New Jersey legislation requiring 2 fireman on camelback locomotives: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Votes_and_Proceedings_of_the_General_Ass/YmczAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=camelback+locomotive+%22new+jersey%22&pg=PA1848&printsec=frontcover

Here is an ICC accident report from 1927 noting the challenge of how to fit automatic train stop devices to double cab locomotives: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Interstate_Commerce_Commission_Reports/VTb3AxE0c2QC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22double%20cab%22%20

Camel or Camelback.

They are actually two distinct types of locomotives.

The Winans Camel was a product of Ross Winans, inside contractor of the B&O in the 1840's. The Camel was intended to burn coal and provide more power than competetive engines. Winans Camels were 0-8-0's and featured a long, low boiler with the firebox even ower and behind the rear driver. The steam dome was unusually tall, like the hump on a camel and the cab was a large cabin over the boiler. The fireman worked from the tender apron. Some "long furnace" Camels had firedoors in the top of the firebox as well as the end. A Winans Camel could not burn anthracite as that fuel burned too hot.

In addition to B&O, PRR and P&R had Winans Camels as they were the best heavy haul locomotives of the day.

P&R had wanted a powerful locomotive that could burn anthracite. In the late 1850's, James Milholland of P&R's Reading Locomotive Shop developed a longer firebox with a larger grate that could burn anthracite and they were installed on P&R's "Gunboat" class 4-6-0's and they became their standard heavy haul locomotive. Notably, the cab was on top of the low firebox and the fireman worked from the tender apron.

In 1873, P&R wanted a locomotive that could burn "culm" or waste anthracite (mine tailings) and John E. Wootten took the Milholland firebox and widened it to the clearance limit. This could burn culm but the cab was still high up on top of the firebox. This was not a problem on the P&R but for service elsewhere Wootten moved the cab to in front of the firebox. Thus was born the camelback.

Soon the RR's found camelbacks ran even better on lump anthracite. Camelbacks proliferated through the anthracite regions.

Which is why Winans Camels and Wootten Camelbacks are different.

As it happens there are three camelbacks and two Camels preserved and Baltimore and St. Louis (Kirkwood) each has one of each. The two preserved Camels are post-Civil War 4-6-0 Davis Camels.

Phil Mulligan