Located in Strasburg, PA just outside of Lancaster, the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvia houses a wide assortment of locomotives, rolling stock and other railroad artifacts.  As the name of the museum suggests, their collection is focused on railroading memorabilia and equipment from the state of Pennsylvania.  That includes an amazing and priceless assortment from the Pennsylvania Railroad.

The intent of this article is not to provide detail about the museum itself.  For that, I urge readers interested in visiting the museum to spend some time reviewing their their web site. Their site provides a nice overview of equipment, history, directions and more. I will say that the museum is interesting and very well put-together, even for those not interested in Pennsylvania railroad history. It’s certainly worth spending some time there.

The real reason I’m writing this article is to simply provide reference photos and a brief background for some famous locomotives that you may not have decent photos of. These also happen to be some of my personal favorite locomotives and are all photographs I took on a recent trip to the museum.  Units shown are:

John Bull (Operable Replica)

Photos 1-4. The original John Bull locomotive was built in England and operated in the United States from 1831 to 1866 under the Camden and Amboy Railroad, the first railroad built in New Jersey.

The locomotive was purchased and refurbished by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1871 for use in public displays until it was finally purchased by the Smithsonian Institution in 1884.  In 1939, the Pennsylvania Railroad built a replica of the John Bull for exhibitions.

The original still resides with the Smithsonian, while the PRR-build replica is maintained at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

GG1 #4935

Photos 5-11. With its appearance improved in 1936 by the world-famous industrial designer Raymond Loewy, the GG1 class of locomotive was produced by the Pennsylvania Railroad from 1934 to 1943. Its double-ended, streamlined appearance, helped the electric GG1 unit became one of the most famous locomotive designs ever created.

The GG1 survived the demise of the Pennsylvania Railroad and remained in service under later flags until the early 1980s. Sixteen total GG1 units remain in existence today.

G5 #5741

Photos 12-14. The Pennsy G5 class 4-6-0 steam locomotives were built between 1923 and 1925 and were the largest and heaviest ten-wheel units ever produced. Because of its very rough ride, G5 locomotives were rarely used for passenger service and instead hauled freight. If anyone has additional information on the Pennsylvania G5, please share it in comments on this article.

EP20 (E7) #5901

Photos 15-17 . The PRR E7 baring the road number 5901 is quite possibly one of the most historically-significant Pennsylvania Railroad pieces in the museum’s collection.  This unit, along with its sister unit #5900 (destroyed) served as the first pair of passenger diesels delivered to the PRR in 1945. But more importantly, and much more substantial, is that this GM Electro-Motive E7 unit is the only surviving E7 in existence today.

Originally delivered to the PRR in Brunswick Green livery, number 5901 ran passenger service until 1973 when it was involved in a rear-end collision and retired.

Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. #4094-D

Photos 18-19. This unusually bright blue, streamlined 0-8-0 steam locomotive was used by the Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. (PP&L Co.)  Originally built for the Hammermill Paper Company, it uses internal “fireless” combustion and is the largest 0-8-0 fireless ever built.

The museum has restored the unit to it’s 1940s appearance.

For more photographs of the museum’s locomotives, rolling stock and exhibits, there is quite an extensive Flickr collection available from Flickr member, “bigpistol” .

• Pennsylvania Railroad, “Wheels of Steel” (0)
• Pennsylvania Railroad, “Progress on the Rails” (0)
• GG1: An American Classic (4)
• Philadelphia’s 30th Steet Station (2)
• On Location: Strasburg, PA (4)