Mocanaqua & Eastern 2-6-2 "Prairie" Locomotives in the USA

Class 1 (Locobase 12865)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Vol 28, p. 168 and Vol 53, pp. 28+. Works numbers were 27052 in December 1905, 44694 in January 1917, and 57212 in September 1923.

The size of the grate on this logging tank grabbed Locobase's attention and made him wonder if he was looking at a camelback for some reason. He was close. The specs called for the locomotive to be able to burn anthracite coal "...as fine as No 1 Buckwheat." It fit right in the coal region as it was based at Mocanaqua, Pa. The 3-mile (4.8 km) line included 4% grades and 20 degree curves (radii of 288 feet/87.8 metres).

It was a solution worthy of repeating - the WECC ordered a sister from Baldwin in 1916 and another in 1923. The later engines increased their engine weight substantially to 163,500 lb (74,162 kg) and 167,000 lb (75,750 kg), respectively. Adhesion weight in the 41 rose to 122,000 lb (55,338 kg). The 1923 engine was delivered with grates suitable for burning soft coal, but the grate bars were to be interchangeable with the earlier engines.

(Mocanaqua, Pa, was also known as the West End's company town, which included neighborhoods designed by Grosvenor Atterbury. See Peter Pennoyer and Anne Walker, The Architecture of Grosvenor Atterbury (New York: W W Norton & Company, 2009), pp. 207-208. Pennoyer and Walker say that Atterbury's designs, built in 1918-1924 as a third phase of residential building that had begun in the 1880s, "transformed the town." The dwellings themselves were small four-room houses, but the layout strove for a pleasing variety to reward both the owners and their neighbors.

Even after West End sold off the homes in 1931, their owners maintained them for decades. But the 2011 flood devastated at least 100 homes on Italy and River Streets and threatened to break up the neighborhoods. See Bob Kalinowski, "Patch town in pieces", Wilkes-Barre Citizen's Voice, 14 September 2011, archived on [] .