Talk:Camelback locomotive

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[edit] Copyright problem

This page appears to extremely closely duplicate most information from its reference. SpaceCaptain 05:42, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Which is perfectly fine. Information is not copyrighted, only its expression.

It is, of course, not ideal for this article to be based on only one source; so if you have others, feel free to add to it. —Morven 08:41, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Inaccuracy of history

The B&O had camelback engines starting in 1853, so the claim of an 1877 invention date is specious. Part of this seems to be a misunderstanding of the cited text, but part of it seems to arise from the cited author not realizing that camelbacks predated the Wootten firebox.

No they didn't. They had Winans Camels, which are conventional locomotives that have a cab placed on top of the boiler rather than over the firebox.

I'll come back soon and try to update this based on info from Sagle's B&O Power. Mangoe 04:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I've added some info on the B&O locos, but much remains to be done. The article remains somewhat contradictory, as the section on the Wootten firebox version still ignores the B&O versions. I've temporarily removed the "survivors" section, as it is quite inaccurate (some of the B&O specimens also survive). Mangoe 11:50, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Here we go again. I can find no consensus whatsoever as to whether the camelback type encompasses the Winans/Hayes engines or not. I've even found references that say that the Wooten-boilered engines are 'not camelbacks, but only the Winans engines. This seems to be something that a lot of people want to be sticklers about, but there seems to be no real basis for making such a fine distinction. Mangoe 04:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Resolving the Winans issue

There seems to be a group of people out there who are insisting that the Wootten firebox versions of the late 1800s are a totally different creature from the B&O Camels of the 1840s and '50s. In researching this, however, I'm not finding any strong evidence that this is anything more than railfan nitpicking. Googling for wootten camelback winans -wikipedia produces only an estimated 38 hits, and a bunch of these have nothing to do with railroading. Indeed, it yields (via a Google book search) the following:

With the fireman's cab mounted on the opposite of the engineer's, these locomotives took a design from the early locomotives of Ross Winans and the Baltimore & Ohio. They became known by the old name of "Camelback." Daniels, Rudolph. Trains Across the Continent: North American Railroad History. Indiana University Press. 2000, p. 85

An article in Classic Trains says the following:

The first 0-8-0 was built in 1844 by Ross Winans for the Baltimore & Ohio. Winans subsequently built more than 200 such engines in his Baltimore shop, including 119 for the B&O alone. Perhaps the most famous of Winans' engines was the Camel - likely the first camelback locomotive. Carlson, Neil. "Steam locomotive profile: 0-8-0". Classic Trains. July 4, 2006.

Laurence Sagle also uses the term in reference to the Winans engines in B&O Power, teh standard work on B&O locomotives.

Given all this I am unwilling to let the current situation stand, and intend to merge the two articles again. Mangoe 20:38, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I know I'm coming at this about nine months later, but there's some point to both points of view, I feel.

I think it's pretty obvious that the Wootten camelbacks were named so out of their similarity to the earlier Winans locomotives.

It's also obvious that the reason to place the cab on top of the boiler was rather similar in both cases; a large firebox restricting room and vision, and in the Winans case giving an unfavorable weight distribution in addition.

However, otherwise the two types are not related, in that they were separate branches of locomotive development, and the Wootten ones were not based on the Winans locomotives or their copies.

There's also a lot of stuff to talk about with regards to both types, and particularly the Winans - much of the Wootten stuff can be dealt with at Wootten firebox. I do think both types need to be dealt with here as a page on the common terminology, but there is a lot to say about the Winans locomotives and I feel a separate page about them would also be useful - at Winans Camel, for instance.

You seem to feel that your search proves the connection; I'd argue that it generally doesn't, because what you're actually proving is that it's quite rare to discuss the Winans and Wootten locomotives together, although when it does happen people acknowledge the relationship.

I feel that it would be inappropriate to go into great detail on the Winans locomotives on this page and that when I do (since I plan to) I'll place it elsewhere and link to it from here. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 08:21, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

It's also noticeable that quite a few sources call the Winans locomotives Camels, not Camelbacks (e.g. White) although many contemporary sources do use the term (most frequently hyphenated; 'Camel-back'). Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 08:23, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem I see with this line of argument is that the only source we have for them to be considered two radically different types is User:Lokisgodhi's fervent insistence to that effect. I haven't found any source for his claim; even were the article to be split, the two will have to refer to each other positively.

In both cases, what we are seeing is an informal appellation, so it's a bit of a stretch to claim that the difference between "camel" and "camelback" is supposed to represent an intended distinction. It speaks to the field seeing the cab on the back as the signal (and common) feature. The divergent reasons for the wide firebox are of course notable, but the field doesn't seem to think that those reasons are themselves the reason for the distinction. Mangoe (talk) 13:24, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that there is no basis for stating that one or the other is not a camelback locomotive; they both have the common trait of the cab being mounted atop the boiler.

I think my intention was more that there is more to be said about the Winans locomotives than simply that they were camelbacks, and that we may get to the point that breaking out that information to a separate article might be worthwhile, just as we do not have everything about articulated locomotives at articulated locomotive. For example, there is much about them in White's American Locomotives, among other sources, and they were unusual in ways that went beyond the camelback configuration. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 17:03, 28 December 2007 (UTC)