Long Island Rail Road Steam Locomotives: History, Roster & Photos

Published: September 21, 2026

Steam on the Long Island Rail Road ended in public on October 8, 1955, at Hicksville. G5s Ten-Wheelers 35 and 39 stood there for a ceremony the railroad called Operation Changeover, with new Alco RS-3s and new Pullman-Standard coaches beside them. It was a commuter railroad’s version of the last steam run: a station platform, a crowd, and two engines that had spent their lives starting and stopping trains every few minutes.

The owned classes after 1898 are a short list. Edward M. Koehler Jr. tallied them for an NRHS note in 2024: tank engines, a handful of dual-service Ten-Wheelers, Pennsylvania Consolidations sent over for freight, nine switchers, and thirty-one G5s built new at Juniata. George H. Drury’s steam guide never gave the Long Island a chapter. A locomotive-by-locomotive account of everything before the October 1898 renumbering is Vincent F. Seyfried’s history of the railroad, and it is not repeated here.

Long Island Rail Road 4-6-0 39 Oystey Bay, NY In 1954

Long Island Rail Road 4-6-0 #39 (Class G-5s) is seen here at Oyster Bay, New York in September, 1954, between assignments about a year before her retirement (1955). Art Huneke photo.

On this page: At a glance · Ariel, Post Boy, and the years before 1898 · Pennsylvania designs · The G5s, and Hicksville · Post-1898 classes · H10s former numbers · What was leased

At a glance

Item	Detail
Railroad	Long Island Rail Road. Company Long Island Rail Road
This roster	Owned steam classes from the October 1898 renumbering through the end of steam. Earlier engines are in the narrative
First locomotives	Ariel and Post Boy, Baldwin, for the Brooklyn & Jamaica. In service with the opening on April 18, 1836
The modern engine	G5s 4-6-0, Juniata, 31 locomotives, 20–50, 1924–1929. A Pennsylvania commuter design, with a larger tender than the parent’s own G5s
Freight	H10s 2-8-0, 101–119, nineteen engines, all ex-Pennsylvania, built 1913–1916, to the Long Island in 1928 and 1929
Last active steam	September–October 1955: G5s 21, 24, 32, 35, 38, 39, and 50, and H10s 108, 111, and 113
Last public steam	October 8, 1955, Hicksville. G5s 35 and 39
What survives	35, held for Nassau County, at the Oyster Bay Railroad Museum. 39 at the Railroad Museum of Long Island. See No. 39

Classes follow Koehler. G5s years follow the Railroad Museum of Long Island. H10s former numbers follow Dave Keller. Information compiled September 21, 2026.

Before the Pennsylvania sent engines

The first two locomotives were Baldwins, the Ariel and the Post Boy, built for the Brooklyn & Jamaica and in steam when that road opened on April 18, 1836. By 1844, the year the main line reached Greenport, Ediger counted eleven locomotives. For the next half century the roster was whatever a railroad of that size bought, inherited, or absorbed when Austin Corbin gathered the island’s other companies in the 1880s: Americans, Ten-Wheelers, and the usual switchers, renumbered more than once.

In October 1898 the railroad put those engines into a new number scheme, blocked by wheel arrangement. The G5s and the H10s still follow it. The H6sb Consolidations and the C51 switchers, which arrived later and from outside, do not. Reconstructing every pre-1898 number is a different book.

The first twentieth-century class that was the Long Island’s own, and not a Pennsylvania hand-me-down, was a suburban tank. Class S51, five 2-6-2Ts numbered 20–24, was on the roster from 1904 to 1911. They were not a Pennsylvania design. Their road numbers went back into the pool, and the G5s would wear 20–24 a generation later. Six dual-service Ten-Wheelers, class G53sd, numbers 141–146, were built in 1917. They also sit outside the Pennsylvania’s own class book. Three of them were still around in the late 1940s, which is why an old snapshot of the roster shows a quantity of three. Six is the number built.

Consolidations, switchers, and a parent company’s parts bin

Once the Pennsylvania owned the railroad, the easy way to get an engine was to take one Altoona already understood. Fifteen H6sb 2-8-0s, numbered 300–314, arrived between about November 1922 and January 1923. The 300 series sits outside the 1898 scheme. The first 307 was replaced by a second 307 after August 1935. By 1949 only about four were left. They were gone before the public end of steam.

The freight engine of the late steam railroad was the H10s. Nineteen of them, 101–119, came from the Pennsylvania in two batches: 101–109 in 1928 and 110–119 in 1929. All nineteen had been built for the Pennsylvania, or for a Pennsylvania family road, between 1913 and 1916. One, No. 102, was a Juniata product. The others were Baldwin, Lima, Alco’s Pittsburgh works, or Alco’s Brooks works. Dave Keller’s former-number list is printed below. The last three in service were 108, 111, and 113, retired in October 1955 with the last of the G5s.

Yard work in the same era fell to class C51s and C51sa 0-8-0s, Alcos, in Koehler’s tally nine locomotives numbered 251–259, built across several lots from 1916 to 1924. His own lot-by-lot lines do not add up to that summary, and a 1949 count of what was still on the property is a different number again. The row in the table is the summary. The lot list is not reproduced.

Thirty-one Ten-Wheelers

The G5s was William F. Kiesel Jr.’s answer to a commuter train: a 4-6-0 that could get ten or more steel coaches moving, hold something over 70 miles an hour between stops, and do it again all day. The Pennsylvania built ninety of them in 1923–1925 for its own branch lines. Juniata then built thirty-one more for the Long Island, numbered 20–50, with a larger tender than the parent’s engine, on the order of the 110P82a and about 12,730 gallons. The Railroad Museum of Long Island’s year groups, which put No. 39 in 1929, are the ones in the table. No. 39’s Juniata serial is 4207. Working pressure was 205 pounds, cylinders 24 by 28 inches, drivers 68 inches, tractive effort about 41,300 pounds, valve gear Walschaerts. The full card is on the page for 39.

They carried the passenger railroad wherever the third rail stopped. Oyster Bay, the outer Port Jefferson branch, the Main Line toward Greenport, and the Montauk branch were G5s country into the middle 1950s. Pennsylvania K4s Pacifics, E6s Atlantics, and extra G5s also ran on the island on lease. The owned classes are the table further down. The leased engines kept their Pennsylvania numbers.

Eighteen steam locomotives were still active on January 1, 1953, and that pool held together until December 1954, when six H10s (104, 106, 107, 112, 114, and 117) were set aside. G5s 22 and 28 made their last markups in July 1955. In September and October the engines still in steam were G5s 21, 24, 32, 35, 38, 39, and 50, and H10s 108, 111, and 113. The ceremony at Hicksville on October 8 used 35 and 39. No. 35 was held back for Nassau County and is at the Oyster Bay Railroad Museum. Suffolk County declined 39. She was displayed, and she is the locomotive the Railroad Museum of Long Island has in a restoration partnership with the Strasburg Rail Road. One of the RS-3s that stood with them that day, No. 1556, is in the same museum’s collection at Riverhead.

Owned classes, 1898–1955

Quantities are as built, or as received, and not the count of whoever was left in 1949. A dash is a figure the sources used here do not settle.

Type	Class	Numbers	Qty	Builder	Built	Retired	Notes
2-6-2T	S51	20–24	5	—	1904–1911 on the roster	1911	Suburban tanks. Not a Pennsylvania design. Numbers later reused by the G5s
4-6-0	G53sd	141–146	6	—	1917	—	Dual-service Ten-Wheelers. Not a Pennsylvania design. Three were still in the late-1940s survivor count
0-8-0	C51s / C51sa	251–259	9	Alco	1916–1924	c. 1950–51	Koehler’s post-1926 tally. His lot-by-lot lines do not add to the same nine engines, so only the summary is printed
2-8-0	H6sb	300–314	15	ex-PRR	to LIRR Nov. 1922–Jan. 1923	by the late 1940s	Outside the 1898 number scheme. A second 307 replaced the first after August 1935. About four were left in 1949
2-8-0	H10s	101–109	9	ex-PRR	built 1913–1916; to LIRR 1928	1954–55	Former numbers in the next table. Only 102 was built at Juniata
2-8-0	H10s	110–119	10	ex-PRR	built 1915–1916; to LIRR 1929	1954–55	108, 111, and 113 were the last three, retired October 1955
4-6-0	G5s	20–23	4	PRR Juniata	Jan. 1924	1955	Larger tender than a Pennsylvania G5s, about 12,730 gallons
4-6-0	G5s	24–28	5	PRR Juniata	Jan. 1925	1955	22 and 28 last marked up in July 1955
4-6-0	G5s	29–38	10	PRR Juniata	1928	1955	35 is at the Oyster Bay Railroad Museum
4-6-0	G5s	39–50	12	PRR Juniata	1929	1955	39, serial 4207, at the Railroad Museum of Long Island. 39 and 35 at Hicksville on October 8, 1955

G5s year groups are the museum’s. Koehler’s summary puts 29–39 in 1928 and 40–50 in 1929. Serial 4207 places 39 in the 1929 group, with the museum.

H10s 101–119, and the Pennsylvania numbers they came with

Every H10s on the Long Island had already been a Pennsylvania engine, or an engine of a Pennsylvania-controlled road. Keller’s list is the former road number, the build year, and the builder.

LIRR	Former PRR	Built	Builder	Notes
101	7146	1913	Baldwin	To LIRR 1928
102	7174	1913	PRR Juniata	The only H10s in this lot built by the Pennsylvania itself
103	7205	1913	Baldwin
104	7732	1915	Lima	Set aside December 1954
105	7558	1913	Alco–Pittsburgh
106	7140	1913	Baldwin	Set aside December 1954
107	7616	1915	Baldwin	Set aside December 1954
108	7152	1915	Baldwin	One of the last three, October 1955
109	7952	1916	Alco–Brooks
110	8610	1916	Alco–Brooks	To LIRR 1929
111	8239	1916	Alco–Brooks	Last three, October 1955. Brooks serial 55765
112	8246	1916	Alco–Brooks	Set aside December 1954
113	9732	1916	Alco–Brooks	Last three, October 1955
114	8222	1915	Lima	Set aside December 1954
115	8814	1916	Lima	Built for the Vandalia
116	9888	1915	Baldwin
117	7931	1915	Lima	Built for the Little Miami. Set aside December 1954
118	8527	1913	Baldwin
119	8566	1913	Baldwin

Engines that worked the island and were not on the list

The Pennsylvania parked its own power on the Long Island whenever the commuter peaks, or a bad stretch of maintenance, required it. Leased E6s Atlantics, K4s Pacifics, B8 switchers, and G5s that still carried Pennsylvania numbers show up in photographs and in the 1949 snapshot of what was burning coal that year. A snapshot is a count of survivors and visitors. It is not a builder’s list, and those leased engines never took a Long Island class number that belongs in the table above. The Pennsylvania’s own preserved G5s is No. 5741, at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. She is a clue to what 20–50 were, and she is not a Long Island locomotive.

Sources

Edward M. Koehler Jr., “LIRR Motive Power History: Steam, 1898–1955,” NRHS list, March 22, 2024, via trainsarefun.com. Class summary, the H6sb arrival, the second 307, and the post-1926 tally of eighty locomotives in the five modern classes.
Railroad Museum of Long Island, collection note on G5s 39. Year groups, the Hicksville ceremony, and No. 35 at Oyster Bay.
Dave Keller, H10s former-number list, trainsarefun.com. Engines 101–119, former Pennsylvania numbers, builders, and years.
Koehler and Keller notes gathered in the April 2025 Semaphore, via trainsarefun.com. The eighteen engines of January 1953, the December 1954 set-aside, and the ten still active in September and October 1955.
George H. Ediger, “Long Island Rail Road,” Trains, March 1949. Eleven locomotives by 1844.
This site’s No. 39 page. Juniata serial 4207 and the principal dimensions. The restoration photograph on that page is not reused here.

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