Age of Steam Acquires Reading Camelback

Age of Steam RoundhouseThe Age of Steam Roundhouse Museum in Sugar Creek, Ohio, is happy to announce that it was the high bidder for an unusual “Camelback” steam locomotive in a sealed-bid auction held on July 15, 2020, at the Strasburg Rail Road in Pennsylvania. The amount of the winning bid was not disclosed.  A rare Camelback type of locomotive, no. 1187 is a former Philadelphia & Reading Railroad 0-4-0 steam switcher constructed in 1903 that was specially designed to burn the smokeless anthracite “hard coal” found in deposits across the eastern part of Pennsylvania. It was the last Camelback steam locomotive in regular common-carrier service, and is one of only three such Camelbacks still in existence, all the others having been scrapped by the mid-1950s.

—via Press Release

This article was posted on: July 17, 2020