THE LAST OF THE “CAMELS” (Locomotive)

Today’s item is a link to an 1890s article on a class of 19th Century locomotives built by Ross Winans, whose cigar ships and connections to a steam gun were mentioned in previous posts.  The Camels helped muscle heavy coal and freight trains up the mountains on the western portions of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad’s tracks before and during the Civil War.  http://catskillarchive.com/rrextra/abboc.Html

They are hulking beasts when compared with other locomotives of the day – like the real Civil War period B&O engine featured in the Wild Wild West.

Interestingly, Camels were also used on the Moscow to St. Petersburg Railroad in Russia by Thomas and William Winans, Ross Winan’s sons.  While more recent official histories from the Russian perspective tend to omit the Winans, in the 1850s and 1860s, they managed a massive operation manufacturing and maintaining equipment for the road.

Sadly, all of the Camels were scrapped, but several engines designed as improvements on the Camel’s design still exist – one in St. Louis -http://transportmuseumassociation.org/images/exhibits/baltimore173.jpg

another at the B&O Museum in Baltimore.