EBT Locomotive Roster
1 - 'E R Roberts'

EBT #1 was originally built as part of an order of 16 locomotives for the Cairo and Saint Louis (pronounced "Karo") but was diverted to the EBT when that road canceled the second half of the order. She was to be C&StL #12, "Sparta", named after one of the towns along the C&StL. #1 served along with sister #2 after their delivery in June 1872 to operate the trains of building materials as the EBT's construction pushed up the mountain from Rockhill Furnace. #1 was delivered with a short smokebox, diamond smokestack, three axle tender and dual steam domes. She was equipped with a crosshead feedwater pump placed inside the crosshead. Delivered with a long angled wood bar pilot, it was replaced with simple solid beam pilot relatively early, thus allowing easier coupling to the front of the locomotive. Relatively underpowered compared to all later power, #1 and #2 spent most of their lives in passenger or shifter service.

#1 was named after Edward R. Roberts, one of the early organizers of what would become the Rockhill Iron and Coal Company.

By 1901 to save money in a tight time, #1 was reactivated to replace worn out locomotives in shifter service on the RI&C iron furnace tramway. Those two dinkeys had been retired at the same time as the EBT's original Mount Union switcher #6 which was also a 3' gauge switcher. Apparently for this role, she received an extended smokebox, straight stack and round kerosene headlight. In 1905, after the purchase of a new dinkey for the tramway in 1903, she was reboilered and placed back in railroad service to pull EBT President Robert Siebert's new business car #20. That car, later known as the Orbisonia, was purchased in September 1907 from the narrow gauge Big Level and Kinzula. One of the two dinkeys that replaced her would go on to become EBT third #2 after the furnaces closed. #1's new boiler featured only a single steam dome and placed the bell between it and the cab instead of in front of it as before.

With big modern power like #12 arriving by the early 1910s, #1 was outmoded even for executive car service and she was sold to the nearby Tuscarora Valley Railroad. According to TVRR sources the locomotive was leased in March 1912 and purchased May 1912.^G3. According to EBT Sources she was sold in 1911 ^G1G2.

The TVRR added air brakes and a second sand dome between the steam dome and cab. By about 1922 #1 was out of service at the TVRR and apparently being used for parts ^G1. The remaining locomotives of the TVRR were scrapped upon the abandonment of the line in 1934 and it is assumed #1 was among them, if she had not already been scrapped.

General References

• G1 - East Broad Top - Lee Rainey and Frank Kyper - p. 214
• G2 - A Ramble into the Past on the East Broad Top - Frank Kyper - p.60-61
• G3 - Tom Varney's Red Rooster - George N. Pierson - p. 68, 98