Steam & Excursion > Steam files PRR #6

Here is another image from the steam files of two PRR I1s or I1sa's the "holy terror" of PRR steam , according to author Don Ball, shoving with all their might and fury on loaded lake ore eastbound on the Shamokin Branch towards the *Lehigh Valley Railroad interchange at Mount Carmel, PA.

The I1's were introduced in 1916, and were much more powerful than the existing L1 Mikados and used less steam. These massive beasts are exerting over 192,000 lbs of combined tractive effort with piston thrusts of 182,000 lbs. as they shove against the N5 caboose.

The I1s class 2-10-0's would eventually number 598 locomotives built between 1916 and 1923; 123 by Altoona and 475 by Baldwin.

Specs: 30-1/2 x 32 cylinders, 62 inch drivers, 250 psi and 96,000 lbs of tractive effort. 

This was the class of locomotive that ended steam on the PRR on November 27, 1957 when I1sa 4271 came into Altoona, PA and dropped its fire.

Only one of the 598 survives and resides in Hamburg, NY - PRR I1sa 4483.

Photographer and specific location not known.

*corrected
 



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/24/25 07:18 by train1275.

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The live sight and sound of these monsters must have been incredible!! Thanks for sharing. LOVE the “Steam Files”!!

Mark V.
The Fort in Indiana

Posted from iPhone

Correction: interchange at Mt Carmel PA was with Lehigh Valley, not Reading Co.

Oops
Indeed
Lehigh Valley
Thanks

Posted from Android

Back in the mid-1920's the preferred route for Pennsylvania coal to the new Lackawanna Steel plant in Buffalo was the Allegheny River route via the Salamanca Branch  Oil City - Irvine - Warren - Olean - and then to Buffalo - generally easier water level grades.   Empties came back via Brockton, Titusville - early example of directional running.
But my father - who lived on the line at Tidioute, was a feral kid in that era, and there was a water tank just downstream from Tidioute, at Trunkeyville.
If you think how they had to take on water, the procedure was to get the lead engine, then restart the train to pick up the helpers.  As in this shot from Doug, the USUAL method for PRR was one on the front and two helpers on the back, behind the caboose, going uphill.
The train would pull beyond the water tank, uncouple the helpers, fade back to the water tank to load up, then return back to the train.

Which gave the local kids ample opportunity for mischief.  According to my father, who was probably a 15 year old at the time, they would grease the rails behind the caboose while the helper crews were busy watering up.
Needless to say, this resulted in a great deal of spinning and swearing and sanding by the helper crews.... and my father said that the fireman would stand on the coal pile and throw coal chunks at them, and he got hit more than once.
His brother is the one that had the one-day firing experience on steam in the early 50's and walked off the job and quit at Olean.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the second locomotive is actually a Reading T-1.  PRR did lease a few of these at one time.

mike woodruff
north platte ne

A fine, very evocative image - thanks! Great story - thanks as well. Ah, what mischief kids can get into....

I was in that territory a couple of times a few years ago, and saw that I1 at Hamburg NY too. Both I and my friend traveling with me talked a few times about what that territory would have been like with those beasts operating. Scenes we both would have given a lot to have seen. He was lucky, he had seen it with PRR diesel operation, and that was impressive enough. But to have seen it with steam, well that would warm the heart of any Pennsy fan. And even those who favor other roads. 

MC

I saw some 16mm films of this operation at the railroad club in the 70's. Pretty great stuff. IIRC the LV power was a four unit set of F's.

What does the small 'a' mean after I1sa?

I believe you are correct when you look at it's profile.

Victor Baird


swaool Wrote:
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> I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the
> second locomotive is actually a Reading T-1.  PRR
> did lease a few of these at one time.
>
> mike woodruff
> north platte ne

Eeeh, God, Pennsy had zillons of subclasses like the New York Central?

Victor Baird

pt199 Wrote:
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> What does the small 'a' mean after I1sa?

I think that second locomotive is a Reading T1....look at it's distinctive running boards. 

One of the presentations at May's CRP&A "Conversations" event included Andrew Nelson's The Pioneers of Railroad Audio in the Steam Era:  John Prophet III, Howard Fogg, Jr, and Brad Miller.  Several recordings were featured, including a pair of PRR I1s 2-10-0s pushing a loaded ore train across the NYC multiple diamonds at XC Tower in Erie, PA, quickly followed in the same sequence by a departing NYC passenger train with a J-class Hudson.  That, as well as other recordings in the presentation, left the audience spellbound!  



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/24/25 10:06 by inrdjlg.

dcoursey Wrote:
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> I think that second locomotive is a Reading
> T1....look at it's distinctive running boards. 

You are correct. PRR leased 9 of them in 1956.

Posted from Android

Chris Bost
Leesport, PA

Indeed, I had not noticed the 2nd engine as being a Reading T1.
So that even more closely dates the photo.

> What does the small 'a' mean after I1sa?

It means the engine has been converted from
the 50% maximum cutoff they all had as built
to 78% (says Pennsy Power). It says by July 1947
489 of the I1s had become I1sa.

I wonder how easy it was to tell them apart --
would you have to measure the combination
lever, or did the I1sa plainly have less lever
above the radius rod?

For fans today, the whole limited-cutoff story
is a mystery. Sounded like a fine idea, but
many? most? RRs gave up on it. The number-one
exception was Santa Fe -- all their later 4-8-4s
had 60% maximum cutoff, hence the 28 x 32
cylinders. (If you calculate a 2900's tractive effort
in the usual way, assuming 85% mean eff pressure,
it comes out 79968 pounds.)

The famous ore trains to Mt Carmel only ran
for a few years, didn't they? The ore was going
to Bethlehem -- wonder what ore they got before.
Afterwards, they got ore from that new mine on RDG --
Jeanna or something like that?

Looks like it was ore from Joanna

https://mapper.acme.com/?ll=40.17004,-75.88154&z=15&t=U



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/25 18:24 by timz.

TRailing loco is a leased RDG T-1. They were leased in 1956 so there is a year for your picture. ---  Ken 

Wasn't there a Trains article in the 50s written by D.P. Morgan describing Hippos pulling and pushing an ore train upgrade in a rain storm and the train stalling, then slowly starting?