Jersey Central Steam Locomotives: History, Roster & Photos

Last revised: September 17, 2026

No locomotive more typified the Central Railroad of New Jersey than the Camelback Ten-Wheeler. George H. Drury, in Guide to North American Steam Locomotives, counted 111 of them built in the twentieth century, essentially the same engine for eighteen years, and they were still doing leftover jobs in the mid-1950s. The company that ran them is the Central Railroad of New Jersey. Diesels are the diesel roster. This page is the steam.

Anthracite culm was cheap fuel, which meant Wootten fireboxes and Camelbacks. The first modern non-Camelback power arrived in 1918: Pacifics, Mikados, and six-wheel switchers. By April 1953 all but a few commuter last-runs were dieselized. Ten-Wheeler 774 made a ceremonial last run. On July 1, 1954, CNJ announced it was totally dieselized. The table below is Drury’s post-1900 class grid. Pre-1900 Camelback 0-6-0s and 0-8-0s, and the USRA 0-6-0s of 1918, sit in the narrative, not in a second builder list.

Jersey Central 4-6-2 821 accelerating eastbound with a commuter train after departing Netherwood Station in Plainfield New Jersey on December 29 1952

Jersey Central 4-6-2 #821 gets up to speed with a commuter run after departing eastbound from Netherwood Station in Plainfield, New Jersey, on December 29, 1952. Joe Stark photo. Class G-1s, Baldwin, 1918—the first CNJ Pacifics.

On this page: At a glance · Culm and Camelbacks · Twelve-Wheelers, Consolidations, Mikados · Americans, Atlantics, Ten-Wheelers, Pacifics · Suburban tanks · Switchers · July 1, 1954 · All-time roster (built since 1900)

At a glance

Item	Detail
Railroad	Central Railroad of New Jersey / Jersey Central Lines. Mark CNJ. Reading control from 1901
This roster	Classes built since 1900, after Drury, pages 100–102. Pre-1900 and the 0-6-0s in the narrative
Fuel	Anthracite culm. Wootten fireboxes. Camelbacks until 1918
Ten-Wheelers	111 twentieth-century 4-6-0s, 1900–1918. 69-inch drivers. Last Camelbacks on the railroad
Freight after 1918	Ten USRA light Mikados, then 76 more 2-8-2s through 1925. 86 Mikes in all
Pacifics	Twenty-one 4-6-2s, G-1s through G-4s, 1918–1930. Three G-3s painted for the Blue Comet. Photo: G-1s #821 Plainfield
Suburban tanks	Twenty Baldwin 2-6-2T, 1902–03; five ex-Long Island, 1912; five 4-6-4T, 1923
Last steam announced	July 1, 1954. 4-6-0 774 ceremonial last run; later fan trips, then scrapped
Survivors	B-7 0-6-0 113, Alco Schenectady 1923, operational at Minersville, Pa. Camelback 4-4-2 592 at the B&O Railroad Museum, Baltimore
Shops	Elizabethport, New Jersey. Roundhouses at Communipaw

Class table follows Drury, Guide to North American Steam Locomotives (revised edition), pages 100–102. Information compiled September 17, 2026.

Culm, Wootten fireboxes, and a railroad that planned to electrify

Drury’s chapter opens on the map. One line ran west from Jersey City through Bound Brook and High Bridge to Easton and Allentown, then north through the anthracite country to Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. The Reading continued the Allentown route west to Harrisburg. East of Bound Brook that same iron was the New York end of the Reading and Baltimore & Ohio’s Philadelphia–Washington service. The other CNJ line ran southwest through the empty middle of southern New Jersey, tied to the rest of the railroad by the New York & Long Branch, which CNJ and the Pennsylvania owned jointly. In 1901 the Reading took control of the CNJ and the B&O took control of the Reading.

CNJ was an anthracite carrier, and anthracite culm was readily available for fuel. That meant Camelbacks. The first non-Camelback locomotives of the modern era arrived in 1918: Pacifics, Mikados, and six-wheel switchers. Pacifics, Mikes, and six- and eight-wheel switchers kept arriving until 1930. No new steam was purchased for commuter service after the 1923 tank engines, because the company planned to electrify. It never did.

Twelve-Wheelers, two classes of Consolidation, then 86 Mikados

Until 1918 the most modern freight engines were fifteen class I-5 2-8-0s of 1903 and 1905 and ten class I-4s of 1906, and their immediate predecessors, a large group of 4-8-0s built by Brooks between 1899 and 1901. Fifty-one of those Twelve-Wheelers, class K-1 430–480, sit in the table even though the first of them predate 1900. The I-5s and the Twelve-Wheelers had 55-inch drivers. The newer I-4 Consolidations had 61-inch drivers. Fast freight used 69-inch drivers on the Ten-Wheelers.

The USRA assigned ten light Mikados in 1918, class M-1s 850–859, Brooks, and that assignment set the pattern for every CNJ 2-8-2 that followed. Between 1920 and 1923 the railroad bought 56 more Mikes of the same dimensions but with wider fireboxes: eleven M-2s, twenty-five M-2as, twenty M-3s from Schenectady. Baldwin delivered twenty more in 1925, also classed M-3s, 916–935. Later batches had Delta trailing trucks and Elesco feedwater heaters. A few carried enormous 50-foot tenders. Drury notes that paired single-stage air pumps aft of the Elesco pump, as on 1922 Brooks 875, were uncommon; most roads used one or two cross-compound pumps. Eighty-six Mikados in all. The last of them came off the roster in 1955.

Four Americans, Camelback Atlantics, 111 Ten-Wheelers, twenty-one Pacifics

CNJ had four 4-4-0s built in the twentieth century. Three of them, Brooks products classed D-9s 557–559, were the heaviest Americans constructed, 173,600 pounds—110 pounds more than Reading 400–419, not statistically significant, Drury says. The fourth was an inspection engine, Baldwin 1903, numbered 900 and renumbered 999 in 1923. The cab at the rear was extended forward along the boiler, creating a passenger-car-like body. Chairs sat on either side of the hump that housed the boiler. Superintendents and presidents rode up front. The engineer looked over their heads or leaned out the window. It also hauled one or two business cars.

Like its parent the Reading, CNJ tried high-drivered Vauclain compound Atlantics. Six arrived from Brooks in 1901, class P-6s 590–595, 191,000 pounds, 85-inch drivers. In 1902 it bought three light Atlantics, class P-1a 572–574, 152,100 pounds, for Atlantic City trains; the heavier 4-4-2s were restricted by bridges on that route. Both groups were Camelbacks. Rebuilding around 1910 added weight and cut the drivers to 79 inches. Six more Atlantics, P-7s and P-8s 800–805, came from the Reading shops in 1912: Camelbacks, 79-inch drivers, 220,000 pounds. They looked old-fashioned next to the Pennsylvania’s first E6 of 1910. P-6s 592 is the Atlantic preserved at the B&O Museum in Baltimore.

The 111 twentieth-century Ten-Wheelers were built over eighteen years and were essentially the same locomotive, allowing for minor evolution: 69-inch drivers, 200- to 220-pound boiler pressure, cylinders from 19 × 26 to 23 × 28 inches, weight from 175,000 to 225,000 pounds. Classes L-5 through L-8s, numbers in the 150s, 600s, and 750–789. The Atlantics took the fast trains. The Consolidations and Twelve-Wheelers dragged the coal. The Ten-Wheelers did everything left over. Baldwin 780–789 of 1918, class L-8s, were among the last Camelbacks built. 782 and 788 had “triple-balanced” wheels: two counterweights 120 degrees from the crankpin instead of one. 774, class L-7as, was the ceremonial last steam engine; a Don Wood photograph on the Camelbacks page shows her shined up at Communipaw on March 2, 1956, eight days before the torch.

The first Pacifics were six G-1s, 820–825, Baldwin, 1918. They had 79-inch drivers and looked like Reading’s early Pacifics with bigger boilers. They were intended for Jersey City–Philadelphia trains with the Reading and the B&O. In 1918 the USRA let B&O passenger trains use the Pennsylvania’s New York station, an arrangement that lasted until 1926; after that, B&O trains ran through between Washington and Jersey City again. #821 at Netherwood in 1952 is that first class, still on commuter work four years from dieselization.

Baldwin delivered five more Pacifics in 1923, G-2s 826–830, almost the same except for Delta trailing trucks. Five G-3s, 831–835, arrived in 1928: still 79-inch drivers, but narrow fireboxes for bituminous coal, stokers, and Elesco heaters. Three were painted Packard blue for the Blue Comet of 1929. The five G-4s of 1930, 810–814, were similar except for 74-inch drivers and welded tenders. They were intended for the Pennsylvania lines, which had more grades and curves than the New Jersey mains.

Suburban tanks: 2-6-2T, then 4-6-4T

Short-distance passenger trains originated and terminated at points that lacked turntables. CNJ had run 4-4-0s in both directions, adding a pilot and a headlight to the tender, but the rear-driver flanges wore quickly when the engine ran in reverse. In 1902 and 1903 Baldwin built twenty 2-6-2 tank engines, class J-1 200–219. Sixty-three-inch drivers, two-wheel trucks fore and aft, coal in a bunker behind the cab, water in rectangular tanks along the boiler. In 1912 the railroad bought five similar tanks from the Long Island, 220–224.

Steel coaches needed more engine. Baldwin built five 63-inch-drivered 4-6-4Ts in 1923, class H-1s 225–230, wide fireboxes for anthracite, Elesco heaters, fuel behind the cab, water in a tank that wrapped around the bunker and under the cab. The double-end Baldwin diesels of 1946–48 were a reminder of those tanks: same problem, no turntable at Communipaw.

Camelback 0-6-0s, USRA 0-6-0s, then thirty 0-8-0s

Between 1901 and 1915 CNJ bought or built 101 0-6-0s and 25 0-8-0s, all Camelbacks. Those classes are not in Drury’s post-1900 table. World War I traffic into New York added sixteen 0-6-0s: ten USRA engines from Cooke and six stock Baldwins of the type the builder kept on hand for industries and contractors. The 1920s modernization added five large 0-6-0s and thirty 0-8-0s. The five 0-6-0s were class B-7 111–115, Alco Schenectady, 1923. 113 is the one that survives: sold about 1953 to the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Company, last steamed at Locust Summit in January 1960—the last CNJ engine under fire—and restored at Minersville, Pennsylvania, by Railway Restoration Project 113. She is the only operating CNJ steam locomotive.

The thirty 0-8-0s are in the table: ten E-2s from Schenectady in 1923, ten E-3s from Baldwin in 1927, five E-4s in 1929, five E-4as in 1930. The 1945 class system numbered them 8S53, 8S61, and 8S64—eight-coupled switchers, driver diameter in inches. They lasted into 1955.

July 1, 1954

By April 1953 all but a few commuter last-runs were dieselized. 774 made a ceremonial last run. On July 1, 1954, CNJ announced total dieselization. Fan trips with 774 continued; one often-cited excursion is September 25, 1955, Jersey City to Jim Thorpe. She was photographed at Communipaw on March 2, 1956, and cut up shortly after. 113, already sold, steamed for the coal company until 1960. The diesels that replaced this fleet—boxcab 1000, the double-enders, F3s and Baldwin baby-faces, Train Masters, GP7s, SD35s—are the diesel roster.

All-time roster (built since 1900)

Drury’s grid is classes built from 1900 on. Quantities are his. Retirement years are the span he prints. The 1945 class column is CNJ’s later scheme (wheel arrangement plus driver diameter, or type plus tractive effort). Builder “Schenectady” and “Brooks” are Alco works. Pre-1900 Camelback 0-6-0s and 0-8-0s, and the 1918 USRA 0-6-0s, are in the switcher paragraphs, not here. K-1 430–480 includes engines ordered in 1899.

Type	Class (1919)	Class (1945)	Numbers	Qty	Builder	Built	Retired	Notes
0-8-0	E2s	8S53	295–304	10	Schenectady	1923	1951–1955
0-8-0	E3s	8S61	305–314	10	Baldwin	1927	1952–1955
0-8-0	E4s	8S64	315–319	5	Baldwin	1929	1955
0-8-0	E4as	8S64	320–324	5	Baldwin	1930	1955
2-6-2T	J1	SU23	200–219	20	Baldwin	1902–1903	1935–1945	Suburban tanks
2-6-2T	J1	SU23	220–224	5	Baldwin	1904	1945	Ex-Long Island, 1912
4-6-4T	H1s	SU31	225–230	5	Baldwin	1923	1947–1950	Suburban tanks; Elesco heaters
2-8-0	I5	C44	650–665	16	Brooks	1903, 1905	1934–1940	Camelback. 55-inch drivers
2-8-0	I4	—	675–684	10	Brooks	1906	1948–1953	Camelback. 61-inch drivers
2-8-2	M1s	M63	850–859	10	Brooks	1918	1947	USRA light Mikado
2-8-2	M2s	M63	860–870	11	Brooks	1920	1947–1952	Wider firebox
2-8-2	M2as	M63	871–895	25	Brooks	1922	1947–1952	Elesco; some 50-foot tenders
2-8-2	M3s	M63	896–915	20	Schenectady	1923	1947–1952	Delta trailing trucks
2-8-2	M3s	M63	916–935	20	Baldwin	1925	1951–1955
4-4-0	D9s	—	557–559	3	Brooks	1905	1937	Heaviest Americans built, 173,600 lb
4-4-0	INSP	—	900	1	Baldwin	1903	1937	Inspection engine. Renumbered 999, 1923
4-4-2	P1a	—	572–574	3	Brooks	1901–1902	1928–1930	Camelback. Light Atlantics for Atlantic City
4-4-2	P6s	A28	590–595	6	Brooks	1901–1902	1946–1947	Camelback. Vauclain compounds, 85-inch drivers as built. 592 preserved, B&O Museum
4-4-2	P7s	—	803–805	3	Reading	1912	1935–1937	Camelback
4-4-2	P8	—	800–802	3	Reading	1912	1938–1940	Camelback
4-6-0	L3	T26	600–630	31	Brooks	1902	1934–1950	Camelback
4-6-0	L3s	T34	631–635	5	Baldwin	1902	1946–1950	Camelback
4-6-0	L5	T28	150–166	17	Brooks	1900–1901	1934–1952	Camelback
4-6-0	L5a	—	167–168	2	Brooks	1902	1936	Camelback
4-6-0	L5b	T32	169–174	6	Brooks	1903	1936–1953	Camelback
4-6-0	L5c	T32	175–184	10	Brooks	1906	1934–1953	Camelback
4-6-0	L6as	—	750–759	10	Baldwin	1910	1953–1954	Camelback
4-6-0	L7s	T38	760–769	10	Baldwin	1912	1948–1954	Camelback
4-6-0	L7as	T38	770–779	10	Baldwin	1913–1914	1950–1956	Camelback. 774 ceremonial last steam
4-6-0	L8s	T40	780–789	10	Baldwin	1918	1950–1954	Camelback. Among the last Camelbacks built
4-6-2	G1s	P43	820–825	6	Baldwin	1918	1948–1954	First CNJ Pacifics. Photo: #821 Netherwood
4-6-2	G2s	P43	826–830	5	Baldwin	1923	1953–1955	Delta trailing trucks
4-6-2	G3s	P47	831–835	5	Baldwin	1928	1950–1955	Three painted for the Blue Comet
4-6-2	G4s	P52	810–814	5	Baldwin	1930	1954–1955	74-inch drivers; Pennsylvania lines
4-8-0	K1	TW40	430–480	51	Brooks	1899–1901	1934–1948	Camelback. 55-inch drivers

Live-page corrections against Drury: 1945 0-8-0 classes are 8S53 / 8S61 / 8S64, not 8553; E4as, not E4sas; P1a is Brooks 1901–02, not Baldwin 1902; D9s 557–559 and INSP 900 were omitted; 916–935 are M3s, not M3as; M2as retirement is 1947–1952.

Sources

Drury, George H. Guide to North American Steam Locomotives, revised edition, pp. 100–102. All class rows, Camelback narrative, 111 Ten-Wheelers, 86 Mikados, suburban tanks, July 1, 1954 dieselization. Table photographed from the same edition
Crater, Warren B. Locomotives of the Jersey Central. Railroadiana of America, 1978. Drury’s recommended reading
Published rosters cited by Drury: Railroad magazine, June 1935, p. 135; August 1951, p. 109; January 1968, p. 52 (1930 roster)
Railway Restoration Project 113. B-7 113, Alco 64384, June 1923; last fire January 1960; 774 fan trip September 25, 1955
American-Rails.com: CNJ company; Camelbacks (592 Bound Brook, 774 Communipaw); Blue Comet

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