Very Rare photograph of Erie Mallet #2900 in service after 1910.
Erie #2900 was an experimental 2-6-8-0 Mallet constructed in April 1910 by the Erie railroad's Meadville, PA. Shops for freight and pusher service and some freight services in Pennsylvania, often seeing the most use in Port Jervis, NY.
History and Conversion[]
Erie #2900 was originally built as H-22 Class 2-8-0 Consolidation #1830 in June 1905, by the Baldwin Locomotive Works for freight Service on the Erie railway along with others of the Harriman-Standard design commonly seen in the first decade of the twentieth century on other railroads such as the Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, and Chicago & Alton Railway. After the introduction of the 2-6-8-0 on the Great Northern in 1909 the Baldwin Locomotive Works offered a Conversion "Kit Mallet" to convert a Consolidation type into a Mallet by supplying an additional driving frame as a 2-6-0 along with an extended Boiler and an additional set of Low-pressure cylinders. Very few Baldwin Kit Mallets were ever built, and the Erie Railway became interested later that year and the locomotive was rebuilt at their Meadville Shops and its smokebox was converted to a combustion chamber for the additional Reheater boiler extension where it gained two large 35" x 30" Low pressure Cylinders in the front. The regular consolidation used its 22" x 28" as rear High-Pressure cylinders. Keeping it's same short Vanderbilt tender the M-1 was not only short-lived but very unique to the railroad as it was the only Articulated Mallet constructed by the Erie. When completed the locomotive with tender weighed 577,700 Lbs. gaining 237,860 Lbs. from the weight of an unmodified H-22 keeping it's Stephenson valve gear and 57" drivers. The engine retained the As-built 200 Lbs. of steam pressure and hand-shoveling. The shops erected the new locomotive as numbered #2900 in April 1910 as it was the fourth addition to seven articulated the Erie would ever own. 
Service Trials and Eventual Fate[]
When the new #2900 was pressed into service in the spring of 1910, it was classified as the sole M-1 Class locomotive on the railroad starting service as a pusher engine near the Susquehanna River on the railroad's Inclines and was renumbered back to #1830 prior to April 1913 where the number was reused on a K-2 Pacific delivered from the Lima Locomotive Works that year. The engine performed poorly, but the only benefits of the conversion was that the engine's additional cylinders and weight rose the starting Tractive Effort at 62,082 Lbs. which proved to be much more powerful than a regular H-22 at 43,305 Lbs. The locomotive did not last long in service as it was considered to be too Small of a locomotive and too small of a boiler overall as the additional cylinders inhaled more steam than what the boiler was often capable of. When being used to push and pull trains up the steep grades, the locomotive was capable of moving a very heavy load. But at an unimpressive speed on the hill of no more than three miles per hour. Several years later the Erie Railway turned to the Baldwin Locomotive Works for a better pusher locomotive and came across the very powerful and much larger P-1 class Triplexes starting in 1914 and by 1916 the Triplexes took the sole M-1's role although it only went barely ever faster and the #1830 was taken out of service. The Erie shops in Susquehanna cut up and rebuilt the locomotive into a H-22A class as #1830 an 0-8-0 in February 1916. Not too long after in July 1918 the engine was reclassified as a C-2 Class and continued to be used for Switching and Yard work until it was Retired and sold for scrapping in August 1933. Nothing of the locomotive or conversion survives.
Trivia[]
- Despite the fact the Triplexes worked better than the M-1 and was barely and difference in speed, the L-1 class of 1907 was the most successful and the longest lived of any Erie Articulated design in general. 
- The sole M-1 is amongst one of the only Standard Gauge American Mallets to ever bare Stephenson valve gear.
- A year after its conversion, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad tried one with a E-24 class Consolidation but received the same results after Trials.