Delaware & Hudson Steam Roster (Post 1900)

Last revised: September 18, 2026

Delaware & Hudson steam is remembered for more than 200 Consolidations on an anthracite road that would not buy Super Power. Until 1907 the typical 2-8-0 was a Camelback. After that the railroad rebuilt bridges instead of adding axles, then, when bridge traffic needed speed, bought forty Challengers and fifteen dual-service 4-8-4s. George H. Drury, in Guide to North American Steam Locomotives, is the book for how that fleet sat on one roster. The table below is his post-1900 class grid.

The last run of a steam locomotive was the night of July 21, 1953: 4-8-4 300, the standby engine at Rouses Point, on train 8 to Albany, then Colonie the next day for scrap. No complete D&H steam engine survives. The diesels that replaced this fleet are the diesel roster.

Delaware and Hudson 4-8-4 313 Class K at the yard in Whitehall New York September 2 1950

Delaware & Hudson 4-8-4 #313 (Class K) at the yard in Whitehall, New York, on September 2, 1950. Bob Collins photo. One of fifteen dual-service Northerns, three years from the end of steam.

On this page: At a glance · Consolidations · Loree’s high-pressure four · Pacifics, Ten-Wheelers, switchers, Mallets · Challengers, Northerns, July 21, 1953 · All-time roster (built since 1900)

At a glance

Item	Detail
Railroad	Delaware & Hudson. Mark DH. Company Delaware & Hudson
This roster	Classes built since 1900, after Drury, pages 152–154. Photo: Class K #313 Whitehall
Map	Wilkes-Barre and Binghamton north through Albany and Whitehall to Rouses Point and Montreal; Mechanicville to the Boston & Maine
Everyday freight	More than 200 2-8-0s. E-5 263,900 lb. E-6a 63-inch drivers, 296,000 lb. E-5a 298,000 lb, last non-experimental Consolidations
Modern power	No USRA, no Lima Super Power. Forty Class J 4-6-6-4s, 1940–46. Fifteen Class K 4-8-4s, 1943
Passenger	Ten P Pacifics, 1914. Three P-1s from Colonie, 1929–31. Dual-service 4-8-4s on the Laurentian and the overnight Montreal Limited
Last steam	Class K 300, train 8, Rouses Point–Albany, night of July 21, 1953. Colonie the next day for scrap
Survivor	None complete. Stourbridge Lion boiler at the Smithsonian; a 300-class tender later on Canadian Pacific
Shops	Colonie, north of Albany

Class table follows Drury, Guide to North American Steam Locomotives (revised edition), pages 152–154. Last run follows Drury: 4-8-4 300, train 8, July 21, 1953. Information compiled September 18, 2026.

Camelbacks, then 200-odd 2-8-0s, then bigger 2-8-0s

The company owned anthracite, mined it, sold it, hauled it, and burned it. Until 1907 the typical D&H Consolidation was a Camelback with a Wootten firebox. The first 18 class E-5s arrived from Alco that way in 1906 and 1907. Later E-5s, 1907 through 1914, were conventional single-cab engines. Total weight was 263,900 pounds. Ninety of them, 1007–1096, were the numerous class.

A single E-6 came in 1916 and twenty more in 1918, classed E-6a, 1200–1220. They had 63-inch drivers—earlier D&H Consolidations had 57-inch—and weighed 296,000 pounds, a little over a USRA light 2-8-0. Between 1926 and 1930 Colonie and Schenectady built a dozen E-5as, 1111–1122, at 298,000 pounds. Those were the last non-experimental 2-8-0s. Number 1119 left Colonie in 1929. E-6a 1219 received a fusion-welded boiler in 1937.

The United States Railroad Administration ran the railroad in World War I and allotted it no USRA locomotives. Anthracite needed a wide firebox. After the war D&H skipped Alco’s three-cylinder engines and Lima’s Super Power. A railroad that wants a larger locomotive can add axles or it can rebuild the plant for more weight on the same axles. D&H chose the second. Roadbed and bridges went up; the 2-8-0 stayed.

From 1923 into the mid-1930s a modernization program put superheaters, piston valves, Walschaerts gear, and single cabs on engines that still had Camelback leftovers. Tender boosters, poppet valves, feedwater heaters, roller bearings, and outside-bearing engine trucks followed. Rebuilding changed the look: small cabs, concealed piping, capped stacks, recessed headlights. Fourteen E-5s became B-7 0-8-0s; ten E-3as became B-6s; the seven E-4s, 1000–1006, became B-5s in 1921–25. The rest of the E-3s were rebuilt, renumbered, and reclassified as 2-8-0s, not as a block of switchers.

Engines assigned to the Plattsburgh–Lake Placid line through the Adirondacks burned oil in summer. That route was abandoned in 1946. Six D-3b Ten-Wheelers, 590–594 and 599, were built convertible to oil or soft coal.

Four high-pressure experiments, 1924–33

Leonor F. Loree became president in 1907. His efficiency program is the reason D&H steam looks the way it does: standardized 2-8-0s, then four experimental high-pressure locomotives that did not stick. Three cross-compound 2-8-0s and a triple-expansion 4-8-0, 1924–33, carried watertube fireboxes and boilers at 350, 400, and 500 pounds. They were named Horatio Allen (1400), John B. Jervis (1401), James Archibald (1402), and L. F. Loree (1403). Number 1401 put the stack well forward of the cylinder center line, ran a steam pipe over the smokebox from the high-pressure cylinder to the low-pressure side, and had a booster on the tender truck. They were complex. They were retired in 1942. Loree left the railroad in 1938 and died in 1940.

Ten Pacifics, three Colonie experiments, and the rest of the yard

D&H was not a major passenger carrier. In 1914 Alco delivered ten Pacifics, class P, 600–609, to replace Americans and Ten-Wheelers on Albany–Montreal trains. Colonie built three more, P-1 651–653, in 1929–31: one with piston valves, two with poppet valves. After that, passenger development was the dual-service 4-8-4s, which worked the daylight Laurentian and the overnight Montreal Limited more than they worked freight. Rebuilt Pacific 606 shows the house look: recessed headlight, a British-looking flanged stack, smoke lifters, a sloping plate between pilot and smokebox, cab sides down to the tender tank, and almost no external piping.

Ten-Wheelers were the D-3 family: 500-series engines from Schenectady, Colonie, Montreal, and MLW, 1903–11. D-3 500–508 is 19 locomotives, not a consecutive 500–508 block. Switchers were B-4 0-6-0s, 23–56, thirty-four engines from Colonie and Dickson, 1902–07, plus the 0-8-0s cut down from Consolidations.

For pushers, Alco sent thirteen 0-8-8-0s, class H, 1600–1612, in 1910–12. In 1917 the railroad bought two Pittsburgh & West Virginia 2-6-6-0s, Alco 1910, converted them to 0-6-6-0s, and put them on the Oneonta hump as H-1 1500 and 1501. They were gone in 1935. The Challengers reused 1500–1539.

The Stourbridge Lion of 1829 is a separate story. This roster starts in 1900.

Forty Challengers, fifteen Northerns, then 300 on train 8

Anthracite declined. The paying traffic became bridge freight: Wilkes-Barre and Binghamton to Canadian connections at the border, and to the Boston & Maine at Mechanicville. Fast freight needed more than 2-8-0s. Between 1940 and 1946 Alco built forty 4-6-6-4 Challengers, class J, 1500–1539. Fifteen dual-service 4-8-4s, class K, 300–314, followed in 1943. The Northerns made less tractive effort than the E-5as and E-6as and could move faster. Challenger 1531, in Drury’s photograph, differs from Clinchfield 4-6-6-4s mainly in stack, headlight, and pilot. The class encyclopedia is the D&H 4-6-6-4s page. The type is 4-8-4.

The Challengers and Northerns had short lives. All were scrapped in 1952 and 1953. Drury’s last run is 4-8-4 300, standby at Rouses Point, train 8 to Albany on the night of July 21, 1953, then Colonie the next day to be cut up. Dieselization echoed the old 2-8-0 standard: two Alco models, 1,000-horsepower switchers and 1,500- and 1,600-horsepower road-switchers. The first S-2s had arrived in May 1944. Nothing complete from this steam roster was saved.

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. Builder “Schenectady” is Alco. D-3 500–508 is 19 engines, not nine consecutive numbers. Empty retirement cells are classes he lists as rebuilt out of the 2-8-0 column. Pre-1900 Camelbacks and the Lion sit in the paragraphs above, not in a second table.

Type	Class	Numbers	Qty	Builder	Built	Retired	Notes
0-6-0	B-4	23–56	34	D&H, Dickson	1902–1907	1929–1951
0-8-0	B-5	81–87	7	D&H	1921–1925	1945–1951	Rebuilt from E-4 2-8-0s
0-8-0	B-6	91–100	10	D&H	1924–1930	1946–1953	Rebuilt from E-3a 2-8-0s
0-8-0	B-7	151–164	14	D&H	1926–1930	1951–1953	Rebuilt from E-5 2-8-0s
0-6-6-0	H-1	1500, 1501	2	Schenectady	1910	1935	Ex-Pittsburgh & West Virginia 2-6-6-0s 20, 21. Converted 1917, Oneonta hump. Numbers reused on Challengers
0-8-8-0	H	1600–1612	13	Schenectady	1910–1912	1943–1952	Pushers
2-8-0	E-2a	738–764	27	Dickson, D&H, Schenectady	1900–1901	1930–1950
2-8-0	E-2b	765–785	21	Dickson, Schenectady	1901–1902	1930–1950
2-8-0	E-3	786–803	18	Schenectady	1902	—	Rebuilt, renumbered, and reclassified
2-8-0	E-3	804–889	86	Schenectady, Dickson	1903–1906	—	Rebuilt, renumbered, and reclassified
2-8-0	E-4	1000–1006	7	Schenectady, Dickson	1899, 1901	—	Rebuilt to B-5 0-8-0s, 1921–1925
2-8-0	E-5	1007–1096	90	Schenectady	1906–1914	1942–1953	First 18 Camelbacks, 1906–07. 14 to B-7 0-8-0s
2-8-0	E-5a	1111–1122	12	D&H / Schenectady	1926–1930	1952–1953	Last non-experimental 2-8-0s. 298,000 lb. 1119 Colonie 1929
2-8-0	E-6a	1200–1220	21	Schenectady	1916, 1918	1951–1953	63-inch drivers, 296,000 lb. 1219 fusion-welded boiler, 1937
2-8-0	E-7	1400–1402	3	Schenectady	1924–1930	1942	Named Horatio Allen, John B. Jervis, and James Archibald
4-6-0	D-3	500–508	19	Schenectady, D&H	1903–1905	1939–1952	Not sequential
4-6-0	D-3	557–561	5	Schenectady, MLW	1907	1949–1952
4-6-0	D-3a	521–524	4	Schenectady	1904	1940, 1951
4-6-0	D-3b	534–559	26	Montreal, D&H, Schenectady	1905–1907	1935–1952
4-6-0	D-3b	590–594, 599	6	Schenectady	1911	1942–1946	Convertible to oil or soft coal
4-6-2	P	600–609	10	Schenectady	1914	1952–1953	Albany–Montreal
4-6-2	P-1	651–653	3	D&H	1929–1931	1951, 1953	Colonie. One piston valves, two poppet
4-8-0	E-7	1403	1	Schenectady	1933	1942	Named L. F. Loree
4-8-4	K	300–314	15	Schenectady	1943	1952–1953	Dual service. Last steam 300, train 8, July 21, 1953. Photo: #313 Whitehall
4-6-6-4	J	1500–1539	40	Schenectady	1940–1946	1952–1953	Class encyclopedia D&H 4-6-6-4s

Sources

Drury, George H. Guide to North American Steam Locomotives, revised edition, pp. 152–154. Post-1900 class table; Camelback E-5s through 1907; E-6a 63-inch / 296,000 lb; E-5a 298,000 lb; no USRA allotment; four high-pressure experiments 1924–33; 40 Challengers and 15 4-8-4s; last run 4-8-4 300, train 8, July 21, 1953; recommended Shaughnessy and Morgan
Shaughnessy, Jim. Delaware & Hudson. Berkeley, Calif.: Howell-North, 1967. Drury’s recommended reading; company construction authority
Morgan, David P. “Loree’s Locomotives.” Trains, July 1952, p. 20
McLaughlin, D. W. “Consolidations, Incorporated.” Trains, April 1967, p. 38; May 1967, p. 20; June 1967, p. 38
Railroad magazine. Published D&H rosters: November 1936, p. 125; April 1947, p. 38; April 1953, p. 116; June 1963, p. 17
Delaware & Hudson Railway Historical Society. delawarehudson.org/history. First diesel May 1944; fires dropped July 22, 1953
Bridge Line Historical Society. bridge-line.org/steam. No complete D&H steam preserved; Lion boiler; 300-class tender later on CP
American-Rails.com, Delaware & Hudson. Challengers and Northerns gone by 1953; no complete survivor
American-Rails.com, D&H 4-6-6-4s. Class J 1500–1539; 1219 welded boiler later on 1539
American-Rails.com, D&H diesel roster. Alco S-2s from May 1944; RS-2s and RS-3s that closed steam

Facebook X Pinterest Tumblr Reddit WhatsApp Messenger