Dear fellow railfans,
Here's an unrelated question that perhaps some one can help me out with. I
was looking through one of my old railroad books and came across a photograph
by Ron Ziel. It is a black & white photo of a 2-8-0 locomotive taken at
night. A lot of the details are hidden in the dark. I can not identify the
railraod and am hoping that one of you might recognize it.
Here are the details:
1) What little of the road name on the tender is revealed is as follows:
"...AW CENTRAL". It is located along the top of the tender side and
terminates about a foot from the front edge of the tender. The letters are
all capitolized and appear to be about 8 inches high and appear white in
color. Below that, in mid-heighth of the tender side, one can barely make
out the faded letters "...NGE...". They appear to be the same size font as
the former. But because they are either faded or were painted over at one
time, I can't tell what color they were. If I had to guess, I'd say the
color was gold. (Was there ever a Saganaw Central railroad?)
2) The 2-8-0 appears to be a standard-gauge, North-American style, coal-fired
locomotive. It has a sand dome in front of the cab. The drivers appear to
be anywhere from about 40 inches to 55 inches. It is numbered "29" on the
cab. I can barely make out some small lettering below the number, which
appears to be either a "C" or "C?". If there is a second character after the
C, I can't quite tell what it is, but it appears to be either the number 6 or
4 and appears to be slightly super-scripted above the C. It may simply be a
shiny spot on the cab in the night light, too.
The driver cylindars are of the design seen on Rogers locomotives where the
valve chamber is a square box sitting on top of the round cylindar chamber.
There is no external valve gear.
There is a cylandric object or tank to the front of and below the cab. I
can't tell if it is a power-reverser or not, but I'm guessing it's not as I
can't make out any linkage in front of it. But then, it's a bad angle, and
there is something directly in front of it. Is it possible to have a
power-reverser on internal valve gear?
3) The lead tender truck appears to be a leaf-spring arch-bar type.
4) The photographer is standing at about mid-tender looking toward the front
of the engine, so you can not see any of the pilot. The engine is stationary
and posed for the picture along with the engineer who is leaning out the
window looking forward, and a conductor (I assume) who is wearing a dark
suit. The coat appears to be a double-breasted coat with 6 buttons (two
columns of 3). He is standing next to the third driver with a flare in his
hand (pointed at the ground) and looking up at the engineer as if discussing
something. There is what appears to be an light-colored Flag, most likely
white, on the smoke box. If I had to guess when this picture was taken, I
would say it was anywhere from 1900 to 1940, more or less. lol
Well, that's about it. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear from you.
Thanks!
Val
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