Steam & Excursion > Steam Engines on the Pennsylvania

The thread below from LTCerny got me thinking about the Pennsylvania Railroad and the time that they leased Reading Railroad 4-8-4 T-1's.  Since the Pennsylvania was short on power I have to wonder why they did not contact the Western Maryland Railway about either leasing or out right purchase of the twelve 4-8-4 "Potomac's" that the Western Maryland had retired and put in storage from 1954 until they were sent to scrap in 1957.  These 12 engines were only in service from 1947 when they were delivered until 1954 when the WM became all diesel, thus they only ran 7 years.  Surely the Pennsy may have been able to obtain them for scrap value.  One has to wonder?   Photo from the Western Maryland Railway files.
John in White Marsh, Maryland

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How about that. I've never seen a photo of these locomotives from that angle before: it seems to present these engines in the most flattering way  and dulls the "bluntness" of the front that most 3/4 wedge views show. Really nive looking locomotive now.

In comparing the wiki files of WM J-1 and RDG T-1, some facts jump out: The WM L-1's were 23 tons heavier on engines; and 60 tons heavier overall. Were the WM engines taller? In storage, were they maintained, or allowed to decay?  An eastern road like PRR probably had more restrictive limits in clearance and axle loadings than WM.

* JB *

ClubCar Wrote:
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> Since the Pennsylvania was short on power I have to
> wonder why they did not contact the Western
> Maryland Railway about either leasing or out right
> purchase of the twelve 4-8-4 "Potomac's" that the
> Western Maryland had retired and put in storage
> from 1954 until they were sent to scrap in 1957. 
> These 12 engines were only in service from 1947
> when they were delivered until 1954 when the WM
> became all diesel, thus they only ran 7 years. 
> Surely the Pennsy may have been able to obtain
> them for scrap value.  One has to wonder?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/25 23:23 by prr4828.

The WM Facebook group recently had a picture of a WM Potomac (4-8-4) steaming under wires at Trainer, PA, 1947.  It's a light engine.  Discussion was that it was either a test run, since Trainer is not far from Eddystone where Baldwin is located, or it was on it's way to delivery to WM in Baltimore.

But it got me thinking.  Did Baldwin routinely test new locomitves on the PRR NEC?