Camelback locomotive

Camelbacks were fitted with wide fireboxes which would have severely restricted driver visibility from the normal cab location at the rear.

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.

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.

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 first Wooten firebox locomotives 4-6-0 "Ten Wheeler" types were built in early 1877 by the P&R's Reading, Pennsylvania shops.

The engine could not demonstrate on European lines because, due to the cab sitting on top of the firebox, it was too tall to fit under bridges and through tunnels.

By the time of World War 1, the diameter of locomotive boilers had increased to the point the cab astride the boiler was no longer practical and railroads stopped building camelbacks and subsequent Wooten firebox engines were built with conventional end cabs.

By the 1920s, many Camelback Ten Wheelers with boiler pressure at 200psi were in daily use pulling passenger trains on the Lehigh Valley, the Philadelphia and Reading, and the Central Railroad of New Jersey, particularly the last two.

For their relatively small size, they were powerful, quick to accelerate, very stable at speed, and could be operated as fast as 90 miles per hour such as on the Reading's Atlantic City line.

Also, the engineer was perched above the side-rods of the locomotive, vulnerable to swinging and flying metal if anything rotating below should break; in many cases, the fireman was exposed to the elements at the rear.

The B&O crews, who had co-use of the Reading's line from Philadelphia to Bound Brook NJ (the Reading's junction with the Central RR of New Jersey's line to Jersey City across from New York City) called the Camelbacks "Snappers" in reference to a possible side rod snapping and flailing into the cab.