E&I extra north passing the depot

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E&I extra north passing the depot

Steam Freight train

Up from Petersburg with 55 L&N hoppers of Gary coal, the 1970 blasts past the depot at Terre Haute on the last lap into the terminal at Duane. The rear end of the train should be coming off the E&I, rounding the curve which was visible in part in the preceding picture. The H-7 locomotives deserve some comment, especially since several variations of the basic design appear in the four photographs featuring this rather exclusive power. Sixty of these engines, numbered 2000-2059 and classified H-7a through H-7d, were built for the Michigan Central; fifty, numbered 1950-1999 and all in class H-7e, went to the Big Four. Alco built all of them with 27x30-inch cylinders and 63-inch drivers, delivering the MC batch in 1913 and the Big Four in 1920. The latter group had a slightly higher tractive effort, 59,000 vs. 56,100- lbs., which was probably the result of their higher pressure - 200 vs. 190 lbs. Before the E&I was dieselized in May of 1954, twenty-one of these big-boilered Mikes lugged coal tonnage up to Duane, where they were maintained. (The rest were assigned to the Cincinnati Terminal.) Some of them, like the 1970 above, were without feedwater heaters and had Delta trailing trucks and smallish cabs with narrow windows, others had bundle-type feedwater heaters, and still others had lightweight trailing trucks and bigger cabs with lots of glass. Most of them had had their original eight-wheel tenders replaced by twelve-wheelers, but the latter were of two types, coming as they did from scrapped H-10s and J-ls. All in all, the H-7s plied their trade as drag freight engines very well, with or without modifications.

Jeremy Taylor

Jeremy Taylor

2-1/4x3-1/4 neg

Spring, 1954

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solid coal

500

H-7e

#1970

Alco-Schen

Terre Haute, IN