October 4, 2015
Hol, Ken, Bill and Group - Thanks to Ken for sharing with us how the
GN handed their internal accounting of retired/scrapped equipment through the
use of Valuation Engineering Department records. Very interesting. Thankfully,
the BN archived the data. Some time ago, Archie in Hannibal told me that he knew
a retired Q purchasing department employee who, although frail with age, still
had a sharp mind. Perhaps, this person who Archie knows might still be able
to give us some further insights on just how the Q went about
documenting the retirement and sale for scrap of obsolete locomotives
and rolling stock. Archie, could you help us if possible? Does anyone else in
this Group know of any still living Q purchasing or mechanical department
employees who might shed some additional light on this subject? And, does anyone
in BRHS leadership who is on this List know if the BN shared/donated Q
equipment disposition records and if so are they a part of today's BRHS
Archives?
Hol, I agree with you that, as on the GN, during dieselization the Q
issued "blanket" AFEs for sales of multiple steam locomotives and other
obsolete rolling stock to Northwestern Steel & Wire and competing
scrap companies. That would help to explain the discrepancy in
dates regarding 1842. Makes sense to me as a former scrap
yard buyer since I received sales documents listing multiple railroad
freight, passenger and mow cars for demolition from the Frisco, L&N,
GM&O, TRRA and private tank car owners under one
accounting number tied to an earlier bid. We'd buy one or several cars at a time
on a fixed 30 day quote, or quote a fluctuating scrap price based upon a
deductible tied to a monthly Iron Age average price that would be good for six
months or even a year. Then, the railroad would just send us their cripples and
the paperwork would show-up later. Cars (occasionally including some real "dogs"
such as asphalt/oil contaminated tank cars and heavy weight coaches that
had cement poured floors or even cement ballast in the frames) would then
just show-up at our front gate. Asbestos was not a problem in the early 1970s as
there were virtually no environmental laws or regulations as there are today.
Also, as I now recall, almost never did all of the condemned cars show-up at our
interchange at the same time, they usually dribbled-in over a 30 day or so
time period from the actual date of sale. As the Frisco was the delivering
carrier, there were always some delays with off-line equipment that was in
really bad mechanical shape or had been wrecked and had to be patched-up to
make their last couple of miles into the scrap yard. It certainly had to be
a similar situation with the Q at NWS&W. As for nailing down the actual
location of where 1842 was photographed, let me suggest this. There is an
active FaceBook Page for NWS&W < https://www.facebook.com/nwsw.info >.
Post the image to that page and ask if anyone recognizes the house
shown behind the locomotives or can provide any other information on the image.
There's no telling what you may find out to share with us all. And, if you
scroll to the near bottom of the page, there's an image of a "box car city"
erected for employees during WW Two. May be some of our freight car expects can
tell us if any of the cars are Q in origin.
Bill, thanks for sharing the image of NWS&W 4, ex Q 504, switching the
mill. Also in the NWS&W FaceBook Page is a poor quality snapshot
showing either the same or a sister Q 0-6-0 at a downtown grade
crossing. I looked through some boxes today and did find a couple of prints
I took of Q steam being scrapped at NWS&W. I'll scan and post a couple of
the better images in the coming week. This has been a very interesting thread to
me and I look forward to other's comments as we go along. Best Regards -
Louis
Louis Zadnichek II
Fairhope, AL
In a message dated 10/4/2015 8:58:46 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
CBQ@yahoogroups.com writes:
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: LZadnichek@aol.com
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