Model Train Journal

There is a WLE 2-6-6-2 at the LHS I've been eyeing. Nice engine but I am trying to severely limit my purchases to temper my collection. The question I have for the group, did these engines get through Pittsburgh at all? I have seen photos of Pittsburgh and WV 2-6-6-4s in Rook Yard but haven't found any WLE. Just curious if anyone has come across any photos that might place this engine in Pittsburgh.



Thanks

Pretty tough question. Looking trough the information on the history of the line(s) they were part of Jay and George Gould's attempts at a transcontinental line. I can say that WLE did own those type of engines at some point in time. I'm not so sure that they were operated into Pittsburgh with those markings. I see images of engines that look like them but are in Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal markings.

http://www.brooklineconnection.com/history/Facts/WabashBridge.html

My understanding is that the Wheeling & Lake Erie extended George Gould's network from the Wabash's eastern terminus at Toledo to Pittsburgh Junction, some 60 miles west of Pittsburgh. Gould's line connecting the W&LE to Pittsburgh would be comprised of the Cross Creek Railroad, the Pittsburgh, Toledo & Western Railroad, and the Pittsburgh, Carnegie & Western Railroad, all built between 1900 and 1904. Service began in 1904. On a cost-per-mile basis, the extension to Pittsburgh was one of the most expensive rail projects in U. S. history. In May, 1904, Gould consolidated the three lines into a new entity, the Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal Railway.

As Gould's planned transcontinental system was a network of individual companies, not a true transcontinental line, it seems highly unlikely that W&LE motive power operated over the Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal Railway to enter Pittsburgh. Locomotives were more likely changed at the WPT's western terminus at Pittsburgh Junction.

The WPT would eventually emerge from receivership some eight years later, reincorporated as the Pittsburgh & West Virginia Railway. The Taplin brothers got their mitts on the PWV in 1923, and then things got really complicated.

I seem to remember reading that the W&LE's 2-6-6-2 Mallets were USRA designs from late or shortly after the war (1918-1919), and weren't considered a successful design. The PWV's 2-6-6-4 hit the tracks in 1935, the first simple articulated locomotive Baldwin ever built, and they were beasts.

Healey

I saw those locos quite often at Neffs, Ohio where they serviced the Willow Grove mine of Hanna Coal. This was at the end of what I think was called the Adena branch. At Neffs it connected with the B&O. Loads and empties were exchanged at Neffs for the B&O. The B&O did not go to the mine. The W&LE
also did the same for the W&LE. There was a Y at Neffs for turning locos on the Wheeling. I do NOT think thse locos made it to Pittsburgh on any regular basis. BTW some maps have Neff but Neffs is correct. It was @ 9 miles west of my hometown, Bellaire.
Hope this he;ps.

Thanks all.

Chuck that website referenced is the neighborhood I grew up in and maybe returning to soon. It's really a pretty awesome place and that website is incredible. I've followed it for years.

I figured it was possible that the WLE might have gotten into Pittsburgh. Rook yard which is next to the Parkway West was probably the best shot but all I found associated with that was the PWV.

That was the most concise of the sites I could find with info on the structuring of the railroad and some nice pictures/maps. The irony is that the engines were used in Pittsburgh but not with the WLE markings. I found several photo's of the I2 or I3 (as WLE called them) but the ones in/around Pittsburgh were never marked as WLE. Since C&O and WLE were the only railroads to order them, it's likely these were WLE's that were acquired by merger or "restructuring". Too bad Lionel didn't pick WPT as one of their schemes. It wouldn't even have been a "fantasy".

Marty,

Regardless, that's a good looking engine. (Even if it isn't a Pennsy. )

George