HO Allegheny Steam Locomotives Now In-Stock

Check Out It Out In Action In All-New Video

The biggest engines east of the Mississippi were not rostered by the biggest railroads. There were no legendary articulateds racing along the NYC’s Water Level Route or charging over the Pennsy’s Horseshoe Curve. It was the smaller, scrappier eastern roads dedicated to wrestling coal out of Appalachia — the C&O, N&W, Virginian, Clinchfield, Western Maryland — that owned articulateds rivaling anything in the West. And the king of them all was the Chesapeake & Ohio’s Class H-8 Allegheny.

With four fewer drivers than a Union Pacific Big Boy, an Allegheny could deliver nearly a thousand more horsepower to the rails. Its massive firebox was big enough to host a board meeting — so big it required a unique 6-wheel trailing truck to support it. Its drivers carried the highest axle load of any steam engine, ever. To make the Allegheny fit the C&O’s existing 115-foot turntables, its tender was made taller at the rear, to accommodate 25 tons of coal and 25,000 gallons of water. This required a unique 4-wheel rear truck on the tender.

The Allegheny was the brainchild of Lima Locomotive Works, where the superpower steam concept had been invented in the 1920s. Like the Big Boy, it was designed to lift monstrous loads over one specific piece of railroad: the 80 miles between Hinton, West Virginia and Clifton Forge, Virginia, a coal route from the mines over the summit of the Allegheny Mountains toward tidewater ports. The engine took its name from the mountain range it traversed. Delivery of the iniital order of 10 locomotives began just days after Pearl Harbor and a few months after the first Big Boy; the C&O was so pleased with the giant engines that it ordered 50 more over the next seven years. Fellow coal hauler Virginian took delivery of eight copies in early 1945, naming them Class AG Blue Ridge types.

Typical service on the C&O was lifting 140 loaded hoppers out of Hinton with one H-8 on the point, and another pushing at the rear and cutting off after the mountain summit was reached. About a third of the engines were equipped with steam heat and signal lines for wartime passenger and mail service, where they could reach their maximum speed of 60 mph. Later in their careers, some H-8s were assigned to flatter territory in Ohio and Kentucky, where a single Allegheny could walk away with a 160-car freight. When the final H-8s were retired in 1956, No. 1601 steamed under its own power to Dearborn, Michigan, to become a permanent exhibit in the Henry Ford Museum. The one other surviving Allegheny, No. 1604, resides today in the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

You can see it in action on video by clicking HERE.

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These limited production locomotives can be ordered for immediate delivery through any M.T.H. Authorized Retailer or directly from the M.T.H. Online Store.

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Hurry Before They're Gone, Just Five Or Fewer Of These HO Scale Items Remain In Stock

May 2, 2018 - Each week, M.T.H. releases product lists spotlighting quantities of Five Or Fewer HO Scale items that are remaining in our onhand inventory. In many cases, these items will NOT be re-run in the future and these lists could be your last chance for ordering them before they're GONE FOR GOOD. Don't miss out on these items! Click on the product line link below and then any item number in the corresponding list to purchase that item from the M.T.H. Online Store or order directly from your local M.T.H. Authorized Retailer.

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