Rahway Valley No. 15 locomotive at Steamtown National Historic Site

See the Train Collection web page for more locomotives at Steamtown National Historic Site.

Note: Numbers used in this article, such as 2-8-0, are known as Whyte Notation. This is a system to classify steam locomotives that was created by Frederick Whyte in 1900. These numbers describe the arrangements of wheels. Most locomotives only have three numbers, with the first being the number of non-powered wheels used to support the front of the engine, the second being the number of powered wheels, and the third being the number of non-powered rear wheels. For a steam locomotive with four numbers, the middle two are powered wheels.

The Rahway Valley No. 15 is a 2-8-0 Consolidation locomotive built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1916 for Oneida & Western Railroad in Oneida, Tennessee, where it was used to haul coal and lumber. It was sold to the Rahway Valley Railroad of Kenilworth, New Jersey, in 1937 and remained in service until 1953 when Rahway replaced its steam locomotives with new diesel-electrics. The owners put No. 15 into storage hoping to one day display it at a local museum but ended up selling it to Steamtown USA founder Nelson Blount in 1959. Blount restored it and used it for his excursions at Steamtown, which at the time was located in North Walpole, New Hampshire.

No. 15 operated at Steamtown until its boiler tube blew out in 1973. It was never restored functionally, but it was restored cosmetically in 1987. It now sits on the tracks at the northeast side of the parking lot at Steamtown National Historic Site.