RE: [CBQ] What's Wrong With 5030?

["Hol Wagner holpennywagner@msn.com [CBQ]" <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>]

It stands for Lignite & Bituminous, meaning a locomotive so equipped could burn either fuel.
 
Hol
 

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To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
From: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2015 09:36:16 -0600
Subject: Re: [CBQ] What's Wrong With 5030?

 

Would someone please explain what "L&B" stands for when describing the front end of these locomotives?  Off the top of my head, I can't think what this abbreviation is for.

Thanks,

Scott Myers  

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 9:30 AM, Hol Wagner holpennywagner@msn.com [CBQ] <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

As far as I can see, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the 5030.  No, it does not have an L&B front end, but that does not mean it's not a lignite burner, which in fact it is, as identified by the yellow square at the rear of the tender coal bunker.  By the 1930s the 2-foot smokebox extension with its additional baffles and netting (wire mesh) for lignite burning had still not been applied to every locomotive on the lignite burning divisions of Lines West.  So with only the addition of a set of lignite grates (which were basically flat castings with numerous small holes in them rather than the much more open grates for burning bituminous), some locomotives became lignite burners.  Bear in mind that what was commonly called lignite in referring to the coal burned on the western end of the Q was not really lignite but actually sub-bituminous coal.  True lignite is brown and looks more like decaying wood than coal.  It's a truly unsatisfactory locomotive fuel.  The sub-bituminous coal produced in the northern Colorado, Sheridan and Powder River Basin coal fields has a lower BTU than bituminous and is low in moisture and sulfur content but produces large amounts of ash.  In the Q era the only Power River Basin coal being mined was in the vicinity of Newcastle, Wyo. (where the Cambria Branch long served the mines north of Newcastle) and just east of Gillette.  Today, Powder River Basin coal fuels a major portion of the nation's power generating capability, and hauling it has made BN/BNSF, and to a lesser extent UP, a great deal of money.
 
Back to the 5030:  The Q's August 1, 1938, assignment sheet shows eight O-1 Mikes assigned to switching service at Denver: 5010, 5023, 5027, 5030, 5036, 5039, 5057 and 5059.  All are shown as being lignite coal burners, but only 5057 is shown as having an L&B front end.  The symbol for lignite burner was a square (as in the yellow one on the tender coal compartment), while the symbol for L&B front end was a square with an X inside.  And the L&B front end O-1 assigned to Denver -- the 5057 -- was the only one of the eight not equipped with a superheater.  Incidentally, until spring 1935 the term L&B front end was not used; instead the square with an X inside indicated "spark eliminator."  The last use of the lignite coal burner designation was on the Feb. 1, 1951, assignment sheet; the March 1, 1951, sheet shows only the L&B front end designator.
 
By Oct. 1, 1941, the Q's Denver O-1s were the 5010, 5023,  5039, 5055, 5057 and 5059, and only the 5039 was listed as a lignite burner, the other five shown with L&B front ends.  By Jan. 1, 1942, all six were shown with L&B front ends, so the extended smokeboxes were still being applied. 
 
The real oddity among the Denver O-1s, however, was the 5039, plus two sisters, the 5004 and 5010, which were leased to the C&S from July 1945 until at least October 1946 and used in Denver yard switching by the subsidiary.  And since locomotives assigned to C&S Denver switching duties fell under the purview of the Joint Operating Agreement with the Santa Fe (better known as the Joint Line agreement), the 5039's tender lost its Burlington Route herald and received the initials of the C&S and AT&SF. We're not sure it the other two got the same treatment, but happily Dick Kindig photographed the 5039 on Oct. 13, 1946, , and a copy of that image is attached, along with one showing the 5010 on the Q in Denver at an earlier date, without an L&B front end. 
 
Anybody want me to delver further into the use of Q steam locomotives by the C&S and FW&D and the use of C&S steam power on the Q?  If so, I'll start scanning some images of C&S power in use on the Q.
 
Hol 
 

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To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
From: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2015 17:14:57 -0800
Subject: RE: [CBQ] What's Wrong With 5030?

 

5030 wasn't a lignite burner. Note that it doesn't have the L&B front end. Let's hope there was bituminous coal in that tender, yellow square notwithstanding.

Jonathan

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Posted by: Hol Wagner <holpennywagner@msn.com>

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