Rahway Valley No. 7

Type: 2-4-4T

Builder: Burnham, Williams, & Co., Philadelphia, PA (Baldwin Locomotive Works)

Built: June 1908

Construction No.: 32817 

Previous Owner(s): Purchased new from builder

Acquired From: Baldwin Locomotive Works, Philadelphia, PA

Acquired Date: late-1908

Purchase Price:  $11,400

Disposition: Traded in December 1917 to General Equipment Co., Paterson, NJ. Trade in was applied towards the purchase of No. 9. Credit applied was $4,500. Sold to United States Army for use at its Watervliet Arsenal in Watervliet, NY. Supposedly shipped to Spain and ended its career on a South American logging railroad.

Notes: Built new for the Rahway Valley Railroad. Ordered from Baldwin on March 17, 1908. Delivered, under its own power, on June 20, 1908. Utilized exclusively for passenger and main track work until 1913. A long wheelbase prevented it from negotiating tight curves on sidings without derailing. Had poor brakes and could only haul three loaded freight cars from Springfield to Summit. 

By 1908, the Rahway Valley Railroad rostered three locomotives—Nos. 4, 5, and 6—a Mogul, a saddle-tank switcher, and a Forney. All three were aged, troublesome, and constant sources of grief to inspectors, who repeatedly cited them for being in poor repair. The RV often found itself forced to lease engines from neighboring railroads—the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Lehigh Valley, and the Wharton & Northern—just to keep trains moving. Clearly, another locomotive was needed.

Louis Keller and the Elmira interests, who had backed the railroad since its inception, resolved to purchase a new engine straight from the factory. The Baldwin Locomotive Works evaluated the railroad’s conditions and prescribed a locomotive they believed suited to its steep grades, light bridges, and sharp curvature. On March 17, 1908, the RV placed an order for its seventh locomotive. Costing $11,400 (approximately $315,750 in 2017 dollars), No. 7 would be the Rahway Valley’s first and only brand-new steam locomotive.

Baldwin built the RV a 2-4-4 tank engine, compact but powerful, with its fuel and water bunker mounted directly on the frame rather than in a trailing tender—allowing it to operate equally well in either direction without being turned. The builder promised delivery by May 20, 1908, but delays in the arrival of certain brake-system components from St. Louis pushed completion back several weeks. The Central Railroad of New Jersey, which had loaned the RV its No. 523 in the interim, was not pleased by the delay and soon found itself short of motive power.

At last, No. 7—painted olive green with aluminum trim—departed Baldwin’s Philadelphia plant under its own steam at 11 AM. on June 20, 1908, under the control of engineer W. J. Sweigard. It arrived later that day.

The RV took great pride in the new locomotive, which quickly became the railroad’s showpiece and was primarily assigned to passenger service. Yet, mechanical troubles soon emerged. The throttle valve failed to close fully, excessive water accumulated in the cylinders, and a defective blowdown cock had to be replaced. The RV hired Baldwin engineer Mr. Phipps at $5 per day to travel to Kenilworth and correct the defects.

Following the death of Secretary and General Manager Horatio F. Dankel on June 12, 1913, his successor, J. Spencer Caldwell, inherited a motive-power situation nearly as grim as it had been before the purchase. Nos. 4 and 5 were gone, and No. 6 had been sold. With only No. 7 available, the locomotive was pressed into switching and freight service.

In this new role, No. 7 proved a chronic nuisance. Its long, rigid wheelbase—over thirty-three feet—was entirely unsuited to the tight curvature of the RV’s industrial sidings. Because its pony truck, drivers, and tender truck all shared the same frame, the locomotive frequently derailed, spread rails, and damaged track. It performed adequately on the main line in passenger service but was a disaster on sidings. Frustrated, Caldwell appealed to Baldwin for advice:

“This [locomotive] has never worked satisfactorily on account of the ease with which it is derailed when working on rails going into our sidings.”

Baldwin dispatched engineer George E. Henderson, who proposed converting No. 7 by removing its four-wheel trailing truck and substituting a two-wheel truck with a footplate, adding a trailing tender, and shortening the slab frame—at a cost of $2,500. Caldwell sought a second opinion from C. E. Chambers, Superintendent of Motive Power for the CNJ, who cautioned:

“My personal advice is not to make a change on this engine. In the first place, the engine was built for shuttle service between Aldene and Summit, and built without a trailing tender, so that it would be better for such service. Naturally, if you wish to use an engine with a long wheelbase like this, it is not just the thing for switching work on short curves. . . . We might be able to get a little more lateral swing to the truck under the coal and water compartment, but in doing so we would make the engine ride more unsteadily on the curves. My experience has been that making changes on an engine of the type of your No. 7 along the lines indicated by the Baldwin Co. has not been very satisfactory.”

Caldwell took his advice and wrote to Baldwin declining the proposed modification: “I will recommend to our company the sale of this locomotive and buying of a new one of the proper design to do our work.” But a year later, No. 7 was still on the property, begrudgingly in freight service. Trainmen called it a “rank failure.”

Its troubles only multiplied. The engine required constant shop attention, and its braking system was notoriously poor. Crews recalled that, when switching at Summit, they sometimes had to let the locomotive roll down the grade toward Springfield, unable to stop until reaching the Commonwealth quarry. There, the fireman would leap from the cab with a shovel and throw gravel or sand on the rails for a gripping surface. In 1914 alone, No. 7 cost the RV $1,260 in repairs, including freight and shop charges at the CNJ’s Elizabethport facility.

Caldwell’s frustration spilled into his reports. In 1915, he told the Board of Directors:

“Engine No. 7 is not the right kind to do the work which we have to do and will not carry the freight necessary from the foot of the grade at Springfield to Summit. The maximum tonnage which it will haul is 200 tons including the weight of cars while we should have an engine that would handle at least 400 tons.”

The Board declined to act, infuriating Caldwell. Finally, in February 1916, Louis Keller intervened personally, purchasing and leasing the RV a new locomotive—No. 8, a 2-8-0 “Consolidation” type—far better suited to the line’s demands.

By then, No. 7 had become a financial and mechanical liability. In May 1917, its water tank leaked so badly that it could barely remain in service; if delayed on the road, the locomotive risked running dry. Caldwell sent it to the CNJ for repairs and asked their shopmen to examine the front end as well, since it was “sparking very badly.”

By most accounts, the Rahway Valley finally rid itself of the troublesome locomotive in late-1917, selling No. 7 to the General Equipment Company of Paterson, New Jersey. Reconstructed tax valuation records from several years later suggest, however, that the engine was traded in and its value credited toward the purchase of No. 9—a transaction those same records date to 1918. No. 7 later came into the possession of the United States government, serving at the Watervliet Arsenal in Watervliet, New York, before reportedly being shipped overseas—first to Spain, and eventually to a logging railroad in South America.