Pennsylvania Railroad E2

The Pennsylvania Railroad classes E2, E3 and E7 were 4-4-2 Atlantic passenger steam locomotives, often called the light Atlantics after the heavier E6 Atlantics appeared. The engines were similar in size and boiler capacity but differed in firebox type, valves, valve gear and cylinder diameter, and E2 and E3 were built at the same time. From 1916 a rebuilding program converted ninety E2 engines to E7 by replacing slide valves with piston valves and enlarging the cylinders from 20.5 to 22.5 inches, which let many stay in service into the 1930s. In the first decade of the twentieth century they handled all the fast passenger trains of the railroad. E7 number 7002, actually a rebuilt E2a numbered 8063, was donated to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in 1979.