RAILWAYS –
History of camel and camelback steam locomotives. Illustrated with black and white photos and schematic diagrams as well as centerfold paintings of a Central Railroad of New Jersey engine and one from the Philadelphia & Reading. 24 pages.
A camelback locomotive (also known as a Mother Hubbard or a center-cab locomotive) is a type of steam locomotive with the driving cab placed in the middle, astride the boiler. Camelbacks were fitted with wide fireboxes which would have severely restricted driver visibility from the normal cab location at the rear.
The camel and the camelback design were developed separately by two different railroads in different eras. Though the name is often incorrectly used interchangeably, they had little in common other than the placement of the cab. Unlike the later Camelbacks, Camels had cabs that rode atop the boiler. Ross Winans wanted to put as much weight on the driving wheels as possible to increase traction. Camelbacks have a cab that straddles the boiler. While Camelbacks have the same idea of moving the cab forward, they had it for different reasons. Camelbacks were developed to allow for the use of larger fireboxes, such as the Wootten, which would obstruct the engineer’s view from a conventionally placed cab. Camelbacks were particularly known for being used on the Central Railroad of New Jersey and the Reading Railroad.
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