Hi Hol and Louis,
I've tried to stay out of the discussions on "when was a
locomotive actually retired," as I'm not that familiar with CB&Q procedures.
However, I am somewhat experienced with Great Northern procedures, and of course
the two roads were closely related. Most of my experience comes from tracking GN
steam locomotive retirement dates through Burlington Northern's Valuation
Engineering department. Tangentially, I eventually got into other types of
equipment, primarily just to preserve the records. It is my understanding that
the Valuation Engineering department of GN was set up primarily to comply with
ICC regulations after ICC completed their valuation of the railroad. While GN's
valuation was not actually published until 1927, all of the records indicate
that it was actually done in 1915. It is interesting to me that many of the
valuation records date to that time (1915), including what are called the
"Change Number Record Accounts," (CNRA) which document equipment renumberings
and retirements. Thus far I've found several Change Number Record Accounts,
which are as follows:
Account 51 -- Steam Locomotives
Account 53 -- Freight Equipment
Account 54 -- Passenger Equipment
Account 57 -- Maintenance Equipment
The hard copy records for these accounts were kept in
the Valuation Engineering offices and were in large loose-leaf books with 11" x
17" pages. Each page contained 50 numbers, e.g. 100-149, 150-199, 200-249.
250-299, etc. Each page had a series of columns on it. These were grouped into
four (as I remember it) groups of six columns. Each group of four had a heading
of "CHANGED", under which were six columns headed as "From," "Date," "Auth.,"
"To," "Date," and "Auth." As originally set up the first column contained a star
(which looks like it was from a hand stamp) if the piece of equipment was on the
roster at the time of the valuation in the first "From" column, the actual date
received in the "Date" column, and nothing in the "Auth." column. However, when
the piece of equipment was disposed of or renumbered, the new number or
"Retired" was added under the "To" column, a date was put in the next
appropriate column, and the Authorization for Expenditure (AFE) number was put
into the "Auth." column. If the number were reused, the next "From" column would
contain the previous number of the piece of equipment, the "Date" column would
contain the date renumbered, and the "Auth." column would contain an AFE number
authorizing the change. The next three columns would be filled in as described
above for the original numbers on each page.
In addition to the change number record acconts, the
Valuation Engineering office also had copies of all of the AFEs. As you know, an
AFE was issued for each locomotive retirement, though it wasn't uncommon,
especially in the last days of steam, to have a large number of engines and
tenders on the same AFE. This may have been different on the GN than on the
CB&Q, because the GN kept separate track of tender numbers, no doubt due to
its habit of swapping tenders. Once the AFE had been approved to sell
equipment, someone determined to whom it would be sold. In the case of GN it was
commonly Duluth Iron & Metal, Paper Calmensen or West End Iron & Metal,
though I know the Burlington commonly used Northwest Steel & Wire. Then when
the specific pieces of equipment to go to each company were known, a "Sale
Order" was issued with all of the equipment to go to each company on the Sale
Order. In the AFE records, there would commonly be copies of the Sale Orders,
but then the specific days of delivery to each company were also included within
each AFE folder. In discussions I had with Burllington Northern personnel during
my vists to BN headquarters to review the various documents I was told on
several occasions that the date of delivery was considered to be the actual date
of sale. Thus there are several dates that could be retirement dates in various
records. One would be the date of issuance of the AFE, one would be the date of
the Sale Order (which is what is documented in some records), and the last would
be the date of delivery to the scrapper or other purchaser.
My last visit to BN headquarters was after the BNSF
merger had been announced. I was told at that time that all of the hard-copy
records (e.g. the change number record account books) were to be sent
to the property accounting office in Topeka, KS. BN had started keeping all
of their disposition information on a computer system in about the mid-1980s, so
the CNRA books' last entries were about that time. I did at least see the
CB&Q Freight Car books (though I never had time to really look at them), so
presume they were sent to Topeka as well. Since the ICC has since been
discontinued, I don't know if the property accounting department would
still have the records or not. I believe that all of the Great Northern AFE
files in the Valuation Engineering office were donated to the Great Northern
Railway Historical Society, and are now located in the GNRHS Archives in
the Jackson Street Roundhouse in St. Paul, MN. I don't know if BRHS
may have received the Burlington AFEs or if they may have been preserved
elsewhere. Should anyone want to try to determine what CB&Q records went to
Topeka, I can provide the contact information I was given at the
time.
I apologize for this long-winded post, but hope it may
shed some additonal light (or perhaps confusion) on when the railroad considered
a piece of equipment to be "retired."
Best regards,
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 03, 2015 5:36
PM
Subject: RE: [CBQ] Q 1842
Louis: I believe you are right about the photo being
at Sterling, but it would be nice to nail it down positively. As for the
date discrepancy, I think it's probably greater than two months, as in the
August 22 photo the engine already shows the effects of being in scrapyard
service for some time -- missing cylinder head cover and beat up sheet
metal cylinder jacketing. I only have the January and June 1948 Q
locomotive assignment sheets, and in January the 1842 is assigned to the St.
Joseph Division, where it had been for some time, but by June it's gone, so it
had likely been at the scrapyard for several months by the time its photo was
taken on August 22. It's possible that the 1842 was retired under a
blanket AFE covering a number of locomotives and that the date someone copied
from the records was the date the AFE was completed, that is, all the
locomotives retired and sold under its authorization were actually gone.
Meaning locomotives retired under that AFE may have been disposed of over a
period of several months. Hol
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com From: CBQ@yahoogroups.com Date: Sat, 3 Oct 2015
15:18:59 -0400 Subject: Re: [CBQ] Q 1842
October 3,
2015
Hol - THANKS for sharing this interesting image. For my money, that's an
ex-C&NW Class M-2 0-6-0 type behind the ex-Q G-9. That being so, it would
indicate that the scrap yard where the image was taken was interchanged by
both the Q and C&NW. To the best of my knowledge, that could ONLY be
NWS&W in Sterling, IL. Plus, we already know that NWS&W
used scrap switchers from both the Q and C&NW on their
industrial railroad prior to when the GTW 0-8-0's took over duties.
I say the location is NWS&W. As for the discrepancy in dates,
we've recently had a similar discussion here about sold for scrap,
retired and condemned dates on the roster and what the terms meant. Your
guess on the two month discrepancy is as good as mine. I have some images that
I took myself in the early 1960s at NWS&W showing Q steam power being
cut-up. By that time, the GTW 0-8-0's were handling switching duties. If I can
find what box the prints are hid away in, I'll share with the Group. One
last thing about your image. It appears that the stacks on both locomotives
are capped (covered) meaning may be the mill had been shut down for a strike
or other outage. I've always thought that an article in the BRHS Bulletin on
how NWS&W scrapped Q steam power, heavy weight passenger cars and other
rolling stock would make for interesting reading. Best Regards -
Louis
In a message dated 10/3/2015 10:43:18 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
CBQ@yahoogroups.com writes:
[Attachment(s) from Hol Wagner included
below]
I just bought this photo on eBay because it depicts on
obviously ex-Q G-9 switcher (its Q number, 1842, is visible on the number
plate and headlight number board) now numbered 5 and in use at what is
identified on the print as "U.S. Steel & Wire Co." The date
of the photo is recorded as Aug. 22, 1948. Company records (and thus
Corbin's first book) say the locomotive was retired in October 1948.
In addition to that discrepancy, there's the question of where this photo
was actually taken. There's no location identified on the print, and
an exhaustive Google search turns up no U.S. Steel & Wire Co., only the
expected U.S. Steel and Northwest Steel & Wire Co.
Does
anybody recognize this scene as being Sterling, Ill., and the Northwest
Steel & Wire plant? We know the Q sold many steam locomotives to
NWS&W in the 1950s, including several G-5 USRA 0-6-0s that became
Sterling plant switchers. An d Sterling also used a number of former
C&NW and GTW switchers at the plant in the 1950s. That looks a lot
like a C&NW 0-6-0 behind the 1842/5. NWS&W began operations at
Sterling in 1936 and the Q began selling locomotives for scrap (as opposed
to cutting them up itself at Eola or elsewhere) in the years following
WWII. So it seems quite probable that retired Q steam locomotives were
being sold to NWS&W in the late Forties, and identifying the location of
this photo would change the probability into a fact. Of course
there's still the discrepancy between the date the Q says the 1842
was retired and the two-month earlier date on which it was photographed . .
.
Hol
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Posted by: "Kenneth Middleton" <krmiddle@charter.net>
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