I can’t let this go unblogged

Ready-to-roll. (Photo by Mike Usenia.)
—The April 2019 entry in my All-Pennsy color calendar is four Pennsy I1 Decapods (2-10-0) readying for the Mt. Carmel ore-train. Two are visible, and two more are behind.
The I1 was Pennsy’s next step up from 2-8-0 Consolidations. The I1 was developed in 1916, and is essentially a Consolidation with an extra driver-set.
Except the I1 was also gigantic for its time. Enginemen called ‘em “Hippos.” Anything so big might be too heavy on other railroads. But Pennsy’s track and bridges could support a “Hippo.”
Hippos rode rough. Its 62-inch drivers we small. You couldn’t do much counterweighting. Plus 10-drivered side-rods were heavy.
You could get 50 mph out of a Dek if you could stand it. Riding one was like sitting in a high-speed pile-driver.
But the Dek was powerful. They were well-suited for the Mt. Carmel ore-train. 100 cars of heavy iron ore from Northumberland to Mt. Carmel: a 2% ruling grade; that’s two feet up for every 100 feet forward.
Two Deks were in front, and two Deks were behind pushing.
The Mt. Carmel ore-train was a final application of Pennsy’s Decapod. A similar application was the old Northern Central line from Williamsport north to Sodus Point coal-wharf in NY. Especially arduous was the northbound climb out of Watkins Glen to Penn Yan.
If the grade was steep that was great for a Decapod. I have audio recordings of Deks slamming a heavy train upgrade. 598 were built, a large quantity since Decapods weren’t for speedy railroading.
Decapods were draggers: 5-10 mph pulling heavy trains up grades. PA was like that, especially to the west and north. West of PA wasn’t Hippo country.
The calendar floats a questionable caption. It says the ore was turned over to Lehigh Valley to continue to Lake Erie.
I don’t know if that’s right— and they published mistakes before. I always heard the ore was headed for steel-mills in Bethlehem PA.
If their caption is right the ore would run over Lehigh Valley’s Buffalo Extension. To get to Lake Erie, why not all-Pennsy? Lehigh Valley can’t access ore unloaded at Pennsy’s Philadelphia docks. So it travels Pennsy to Northumberland, then over to Mt. Carmel.
There are steel-mills west of Buffalo, but also in Bethlehem. Lehigh Valley’s Buffalo Extension only goes to Buffalo, but ore could be transshipped to those mills.
But I’m more inclined to think the caption is wrong. Bethlehem via Lehigh Valley is more like it.