Getting Ready to Retire

The front of this post card shows a locomotive with only three more years left in its life. The words on the back of the post card say, “Pennsylvania 713. 0-4-0 No. 713, Pennsylvania RR Class A5s, travels down the street in Atlantic City, NJ, April 25, 1954. Forty-seven locomotives of this class were turned out by the Pennsy’s Juniata Shops.” I researched both the A5s locomotives and the Juniata Shops. Here are the results. The Pennsylvania Railroad's class A5s was the largest class of 0-4-0 steam locomotives. The Pennsylvania Railroad built 47 in its Juniata Shops between 1916–1924. They were all retired by 1957. One is preserved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania The information below is a combination materials gleaned from Wikipedia and this website: https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/railroad/shs1c.htm#:~:text=The%20Pennsylvania%20Railroad%20began%20the%20construction%20of%20a,1952%2C%20this%20structure%20became%20the%20diesel%20engine%20shop. In the 1920s many railroads in the United States of America had retired 0-4-0 steam locomotives, because they were too small for switching duties. This was not the case on the Pennsylvania Railroad. The Pennsylvania Railroad was keen on this wheel arrangement due to complex street and tight industrial trackage across its broad network. For some of these lines, the Pennsylvania Railroad needed a large 0-4-0 to handle the larger switching activities the railroad had. Although the class B was designated for steam locomotives with the 0-6-0 wheel arrangement, these steam locomotives could not fit the tight and complex street, dockyard and industrial trackage the Pennsylvania Railroad had in its possession. As early as 1948, the A5s steam locomotives started to be replaced by higher horse powered and heavy-duty diesel switchers. Over the next year, these switchers were gradually replaced by diesel locomotives. Finally in 1957, the Pennsylvania Railroad converted from steam to diesel power and the end of an era was finished. The Pennsylvania Railroad began the construction of a second machine shop at Juniata in 1917. This structure, completed in 1918, served as a tank shop to repair and construct locomotive tenders. The Juniata shops contained two blacksmith shops, boiler shop, two machine shops, tank shop, two welfare buildings, and an erecting and machine shop. These shops constructed and repaired locomotives with more than 4,200 people working there. These shops could repair four locomotives a day and build twelve locomotives a month. By 1922, various railroad shops and departments occupied fifty acres and were housed in hundreds of buildings. The work force, during this time, varied from between 15,000 to 16,000 people. The Pennsylvania Railroad expanded the Juniata Works in 1924 and 1925 by construction of a fifty-stall erecting and machine shop at the east end of the existing shops along with a three-story storehouse and a small flue shop. This all was part of an effort to move the locomotive works away from the area of the Altoona machine shops around Twelfth Street. This is another of the 333 Audio-Visual Designs Publishing Company post cards that are in my collection.