EBT 16 trundles south back to Rockhill with 8 cars and a caboose, a train much shorter than the one that made her a legend on the railroad when she was new in 1916.
The short version of the story, as told by EBT conductor Steve Painter to Dr. Lee Rainey for his oral histories collected from former employees, was that the mines were low on empties, and 16's crew, waiting for orders for a return south, gathered up every empty hopper they could find in the Mount Union yard. They ended up with a 60 car train, and started south. While they had the straightest and flattest part of the EBT ahead of them, the train barely making it over McMullin's Summit. By the time they arrived at the station in Orbisonia, management was already calling Baldwin to order two more engines just like 16.
