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Reading USRA Pack | The Hidden Stars A'Rambling 'long the Rambles

Hello Hello! Welcome to another episode of The Huber SHow! I am your HOOOOST Mark Huber and today we are going to discuss the Reading USRA locomotives, these engines we're also known as the Hidden Stars A'Rambling 'long the Rambles. Before we begin, special thanks to all my Loyalists, my Iowa & Ramble Critics and of course, my NT&V Engineers, you are the reason why this content REMAIIINS! Debatable. In just so many ways... Now let's fire up our boilers, and pop our safety's, and get our whistles blowing loud!

The Reading needed more powerful locomotives and decided to build some powerful "Santa Fe" locomotives in its own shops. Mr. I. A. Seiders, the superintendent of motive power, selected eleven of the railroad's older "Mallet" 2-8-8-2 locomotives. These "Mallets" were built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1917 and were Reading Class N1sa with road numbers 1800 through 1810.
The first ten Reading 2-10-2s built in Reading Shops during 1927 through 1929 were designated Class K1sa and were assigned road numbers 3000 through 3009. They had 61.5 diameter drivers, 30.5" x 32" cylinders, a 220 psi boiler pressure, they exerted 90,514 pounds of tractive effort and each weighed 439,900 pounds. An eleventh "Santa Fe" was built in 1929 and was similar to the other ten except it received Caprotti poppet valve gear where the others had Walschaerts. This locomotive was designated as Class K1sc and carried road number 3010. The Caprotti valve gear proved to be a maintenance problem and was replaced with Walschaerts in 1942. All eleven of the Reading shop built Class K1sa and K1sc locomotives retained the 11,000 gallons and 18-ton capacity tenders of the former "Mallets"

In 1930, Baldwin built and delivered ten "Santa Fe" locomotives similar to the ones built by the Reading. This group was designated as Class K1sb and assigned road numbers 3011 through 3020. They had 61.5 diameter drivers, 30.5" x 32" cylinders, a 225 psi boiler pressure, they exerted 92,521 pounds of tractive effort and each weighed 445,900 pounds. These locomotives came with new tenders, which carried 19,000 gallons of water and 26 tons of coal. The total weight of the locomotive and tender was 811,000 pounds. The other eleven locomotives received these larger tenders shortly after 1930 except number 3010 which did not receive a larger tender until 1942.

There are no surviving Reading 2-10-2 "Santa Fe" type locomotives.


The first 30 of Reading class G1sa Pacifics were built at the Reading shops from 1916-1922. The last five of this class were built by Baldwin in 1924. With 40,900 lbs starting te and 80 inch drivers, these were certainly not light Pacifcs. They had a Wootten type firebox, designed for burning an anthracite waste product, "culm", and anthracite coal in general. Similar Pacifics were to be found on the Central New Jersey, the Lehigh Valley the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western
In 1948, Reading Shops built Class G3 (no more "s", just as on the Pennsy)) 210-219. Basically, these were developments of a later version of 124, class G2sa. They had higher boiler pressure, and such details as a Worthington SA feedwater heater and cast steel engine beds. Under the combined onslaught of diesels and the debilitating effect of declining passenger traffic, they were all gone within nine years. One of the places where they worked was on the Pennsylvania- Reading Seashore Line, during the summer rush. Actually, on PRSL runs which served PRR 30th Street, they may well have been the last steam locomotives to haul passenger trains in Philadelphia.


The Reading Company was established in the 1890s as a holding company with its major holding being the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad and The Philadelphia & Reading Coal and Iron Co. Its operations included coal mining, iron making, canal and sea-going transportation and shipbuilding. In 1924, the P&RC&I became a separate corporation and the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad became simply the Reading Company. With its great complex of shops for locomotive and car building and repair, the railroad held a position of leadership in the railroad industry.
In 1912, the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad built an experimental "Mikado" locomotive at the Reading shops. This locomotive had 61.5" diameter drivers, 24" x 32" cylinders, a 215 psi boiler pressure, it exerted 54,772 pounds of tractive effort and it weighed 329,310 pounds. The firebox was 326 square feet, the evaporative heating surface was 4,224 square feet and with the superheater the combined heating surface was 5,217 square feet. The design of this 2-8-2 which was given road number 1700 was deemed to be a success

In1917, the Baldwin Locomotive Works was given an order to build 56 locomotives based on this design in two subclasses. The first 26 of these "Mikados" had 61 ½" diameter drivers and were classified as Class M1-sa and assigned road numbers 1701-1726. The other 30 were built with 55 ½" diameter drivers and classified as Class M1-sb and assigned road numbers 1727-1756. All 56 of these 2-8-2s had 24" x 32" cylinders, they were delivered with a 215 psi boiler pressure and the M1-sa class exerted 54,772 pounds of tractive effort and the M1-sb class exerted 60,693 pounds of tractive effort.

These Class M1-sa and M1-sb locomotives used superheated steam and had Wootten boilers and a grate area of 108 square feet. The Wootten boiler was designed in 1877 to burn small sizes of cheap anthracite coal. Slow burning anthracite required a very large grate area to achieve the same heat as a much smaller one that burned bituminous coal. The firebox was extremely wide and shallow at the bottom and had a crown sheet curved with a large radius. The design permitted a thin fire and a light draft, which avoided blowing fuel out of the stack. The firebox was 298 square feet, the evaporative heating surface was 3,803 square feet and with the superheater the combined heating surface was 4,640 square feet.

There are no surviving Reading 2-8-2 Mikado type locomotives.


Special Thanks to my good friend CygnusOX For the great locomotives!