Technically, a "Camelback" locomotive is of the Winnan's design and has the cab completely above the boiler.  The name is derived because the crew were riding above the engine in a manner like a person riding a camel.  A true camel rider does not straddle the camel like a horseman, but rather sits either cross legged behind the hump (or between them on the double-hump variety) or with their legs extened forward with the feet along side of or nearly around the camels neck.

 

Most of the photos here are of engines that should technically be called "Mother Hubbard"s.  It is only relatively recently (since the Diesel era started) that they became known as Camelbacks.  A Mother Hubbard has the cab straddling the boiler and the engineer sits at about the level of the foot board on most other locomotives.

 

The only question I have about these that I have been trying to find out for several years is why the name Mother Hubbard was given to the design.  None of the versions of the Old Mother Hubbard poems that I have come across have given any clue.

 

Anybody have any ideas about the why of the name or where it came from?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mik, Thanks. I went back to look again after I posted. By fiddling with the contrast/brightness on my monitor, I could see it was at least a four-driver engine. Then I got interested in following the thread and you'd replied before I could delete my post. Sorry 'bout that.

 

Les

Hi All;

 

Sorry to beat a dead iron horse (or perhaps it's an iron camel), but I remembered a couple of other trivia items about camelbacks that I thought might be interesting to everyone.

 

Mik mentioned that the hogger of a camelback was in mortal danger if a drive rod broke on the right-hand side of the locomotive.  I remembered that the railroad jargon for a camelback was "widow-maker."

 

I also remembered that in his book, Reading Steam Pictorial, Bert Pennypacker related that the Reading's train crews were so used to camelbacks that when the shops started turning out cab-to-the-rear locomotives, the train crews called them "Long Johns!"

 

Yours,

David Meashey