Given my love of early railroads, quirkly shortlines, and logging locomotives, I suppose it's to be expected that Camelbacks (or Mother Hubbards, as they are sometimes known) should be one of my favorite kinds of mortive power. This Gem brass model of Reading Railroad 8a 0-6-0 required nothing more than the AP&G logo and numbers to ready it for its first run in Rhode Island. If you look carefully at the text beneath the cab window, you can see that this engine bears the honored name of William E. Newkirk, the well-known graphic designer who kindly designed and hand-caligraphed the AP&G logo. [Click on images to enlarge them.]
I long thought that such locomotives were pretty rare, but Edwin P. Alexander's Down at the Depot (1970) has quite a few photographs of Camelbacks on the rails from from Pennsylvania up to New England, though some of them don't have the heavy, massive feel of this Reading loco.
