The Pennsylvania Railroad class HH1s/Y3s are four-cylinder compound

articulated An articulated vehicle is a vehicle which has a permanent or semi-permanent pivot joint in its construction, allowing it to turn more sharply. There are many kinds, from heavy equipment to buses, trams and trains. Steam locomotives were sometim ...

locomotives that consisted of only just six examples of ex- Norfolk and Western Railway Y3 class

2-8-8-2 A 2-8-8-2, in the Whyte notation for describing steam locomotive wheel arrangements, is an articulated locomotive with a two-wheel leading truck, two sets of eight driving wheels, and a two-wheel trailing truck. The equivalent UIC classification ...

(

Whyte notation Whyte notation is a classification method for steam locomotives, and some internal combustion locomotives and electric locomotives, by wheel arrangement. It was devised by Frederick Methvan Whyte, and came into use in the early twentieth cen ...

) wheel arrangement. These

steam locomotives were similar to the

Norfolk & Western The Norfolk and Western Railway , commonly called the N&W, was a US class I railroad, formed by more than 200 railroad mergers between 1838 and 1982. It was headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia, for most of its existence. Its motto was "Precisi ...

Class Y3 2-8-8-2s but with some minor PRR Alterations on them, such as the keystone number plate that was mounted centrally on the small smokebox door and had fitted a little shelter known as a "Doghouse" onto the tender of the locomotive.

History

The HH1's roots trace back to the

Norfolk & Western Railway The Norfolk and Western Railway , commonly called the N&W, was a US class I railroad, formed by more than 200 railroad mergers between 1838 and 1982. It was headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia, for most of its existence. Its motto was "Precisio ...

, where they had once been in charge of general merchandise freight traffic as heavy haulers and subsequently helper service as

bankers A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Becaus ...

. The Pennsylvania Railroad bought six of the N&W class Y3s in 1943 and designated their 2-8-8-2s as the "HH1". They were used in general freight traffic and helper service on the Pennsylvania Railroad similar to their lives on the Norfolk & Western. These

Steam locomotives A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

were generally found in the west of

Altoona, Pennsylvania Altoona is a city in Blair County, Pennsylvania. It is the principal city of the Altoona Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). The population was 43,963 at the time of the 2020 Census, making it the eighteenth most populous city in Pennsylvania. T ...

Fate

Shockingly enough, their careers on the Pennsylvania Railroad were eventually cut short, due to Pennsylvania Railroad's Class J1 2-10-4 Texas type locomotives, and by 1951, all six of them had been retired from active service and they were all sadly broken up for scrap. Norfolk and Western Railway locomotives HH1 Standard gauge locomotives of the United States Steam locomotives of the United States {{locomotive-stub