page_title: Camelback locomotive
section_title: Early use
hierarchical_section_title: Camelback locomotive / Development / Early use
caption_attribution_description: English: A 4-6-0 camelback locomotive built by the Baltimore &amp; Ohio Railroad in 1873. Photographed at the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, Missouri. This image is a composite of three photos taken in a series vertically in order to cover the whole machine in the cramped area of the shed where this locmotive is housed. The result is severe barrel distortion from the extremely short effective focal length produced by the process. The original images were resized with ImageMagick and processed with hugin to create the composite, which was cropped with GIMP, which created the final jpeg file. No other processing or modifications were done to produce this image.
context_page_description: A camelback 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.
context_section_description: The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad began to look into developing high-powered steam locomotives in the early 1840s, and in 1844–1847 built a series of locomotives nicknamed "muddiggers". As with many early B&O locomotives, a spur gear drive was used to connect the main shaft to the driving wheels. The long 0-8-0 wheelbase pushed this connection to the back of the locomotive and caused the floor of the cab to be lifted up above the whole assembly.
  In 1853 Ross Winans, who had designed the "muddiggers", built the first of a series of 0-8-0 camel locomotives. These had long cabs that ran from the back of the smokebox to the front of the firebox. The firebox itself sloped back on the earliest models. The fireman worked from a large platform on the tender, and in some cases had a chute to allow him to deliver coal to the front of the grate. 
  Also in 1853, Samuel Hayes, the Master of Machinery for the railroad, had built a series of camel 4-6-0 locomotives for passenger service. The layout of the locomotive was roughly the same as for Winans' freight locomotives, except for the addition of the four-wheel leading bogie. Copies and variations on these locomotives were built into the 1870s, with the last retirements coming in the 1890s. These were called the "Hayes Ten-Wheelers". 
  The B&O examples burned conventional bituminous coal. The large fireboxes of these locomotives were made obsolete by better boiler design.
  The B&O Railroad Museum has recently restored their Camel Locomotive and returned it to display. It now is in its original colors and markings for the first time since it left the Mt. Clare Shops in 1869. The Museum also has a Central of New Jersey Camelback, the 
  No. 592, which was donated to the Museum in the 1950s.
caption: A 4-6-0 camel built by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in 1869, housed at the Museum of Transportation
exif: {}