Chris:
Unfortuantely, Yahoo doesn't allow attachments with messages through groups
such as this one. But if the headlight looks like the one on FW&D 38, I
wouldn't be at all surprised if that's the locomotive it came from, since it
was kept around by the railroad for a number of years as a historic relic and
used at celebrations all along the line.
Here's its history: In 1902 the FW&D was experiencing an increae in business
that resulted in a shortage of motive power.
The road placed orders for new freight and passenger locomotives, but they
would not be delivered until after the start of 1903, so the "Denver," through
its parent, the Colorado & Southern, went to the used locomotive market,
specifically the Hicks Locomotive & Car Co. of Chicago, from which the C&S had
purchased a number of second-hand passenger cars that same year. Hicks had
acquired a number of old 4-4-0 types that the Union Pacific was retiring --
locomotives built during the 1880s and which the UP did not wish to spend money
modernizing, as they were small by early 20th Century standards and would be
suitable only for branchline use on the UP, where well over a hundred similar
locomotives were readily available. So Hicks made minor repairs to the lot and
put them up for sale. And the FW&D (officially the Fort Worth & Denver City
until the early 1950s) bought seven of them through the C&S in November 1902,
and they became FW&D 34-40. Unfortunately, the one locomotive of this group
about whose ancestry we know the least is the 38. Hicks records indicate only
that it was built by the Schenectady Locomotive Works of Schenectady, N.Y., in
1885. We have been unable to match a specific UP locomotive to this data. At
any rate, the locomotive was used in both passenger and freight service on the
"Denver" until the acquisition of larger locomotives relegated it to secondary
service on locals. By the 1920s it was being used primarily on the lines of
the subsidiary Wichita Valley south and west of Wichita Falls. By 1930 it was
something of an anachronism itslef, having become the last 4-4-0 on the
railroad. A decade later, it was still around, used primarily for exhibitions
and anniversary celebrations. For this service it was outfitted with an old
diamond stack and given the number 8 during 1940 and 1941. Set aside when the
U.S. entered World War II, the 38 finally succumbed to a wartime scrap drive,
retired on July 18, 1943 and dismantled.
It was such a well known locomotive on the FW&D that it seems likely that this
is the headlight that was preserved and for whatever reason mislabled as being
from the 31. Speculation, of course, but it certainly seems likely.
Hol
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
From: chris.a.kay@comcast.net
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 07:03:58 -0600
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Help finding the history of FW&D engine 31
Sorry, the inline pictures don't seem to work. Here's the picture as an
attachment. Hopefully this works.
On Aug 16, 2011, at 5:34 AM, Chris Kay wrote:
> Hol:
>
> Thank you very much for the background on my grandfather. R. Wright is how I
> had heard him referred to as well, but didn't know whether that carried over
> to his professional career or not. Unfortunately, I never really knew him. He
> died in 1966 when I was only 5.
>
> Someone else on the distribution list sent me a picture of engine 31 from
> your book, and it is definitely not the same headlamp. The headlamp I have
> looks much more like the one on engine 38 that we found on the Internet. The
> headlight is definitely electric. My older cousin thought the headlight came
> off a second hand locomotive that the FW&D purchased from another railroad.
> Sorry the picture didn't come through. Here's a copy of it. It's about 24"
> tall and 19" deep. I really appreciate any insights you could provide on what
> locomotive this came from.
>
> Thank you very much,
>
>
> Chris
>
>
>
>
> On Aug 15, 2011, at 7:44 AM, HOL WAGNER wrote:
>
>>
>> Chris:
>>
>> I met your grandfather (known on the railroad as R. Wright Armstrong)
>> several times in the early 1960s when I was a very young man researching
>> FW&D equipment in the Fort Worth general offices for my 1970 book on the
>> subject. He was always friendly and helpful to my efforts, and I have always
>> been impressed that he took seriously the idea that a high school student
>> could be researching a detailed study of the motive power and other
>> equipment of the C&S and FW&D.
>>
>> As to the headlight you now have in your back yard, I have to question
>> whether it is in fact from FW&D 31. As Ken Martin has noted, the 31 was a
>> small 0-4-0 switcher, one of a pair ordered by Gen. Grenville M. Dodge and
>> built by the Cooke Locomotive Works in the spring of 1888, the other as
>> Denver, Texas & Fort Worth No. 19, eventually becoming C&S 501. As Ken
>> noted, the 31 was retired and scrapped in 1906 and in all likelihood never
>> received an electric headlight. The rather well known photo of the 31,
>> reproduced in "The Colorado Road," was handed out by the railroad itself,
>> along with a view of engine No. 1, as examples of the road's early motive
>> power. It shows the 31 equipped with the large box-like kerosene headlight
>> with which it was almost certainly equipped for its entire life. You say the
>> lamp in your possession is similar to one in a photo of FW&D 38. The 38 was
>> a second-hand Union Pacific locomotive acquired by the "Denver" early in the
>> 20th Century, and it lasted into the 1940s. Outfitted with an electric
>> headlight in the early Teens, it was subsequently fitted with a newer, more
>> modern headlight. Both of these electric headlights -- as with the vast
>> majority of locomotive headlights powered by electricity (Burlington's
>> famous homemade "cuckoo clock" headlights being a notable exception) -- were
>> round or cylindrical, with illuminated number boards on each side, either
>> flat on the cylinder or jutting outward on "wings." So if your headlight is
>> a big (close to 3 feet tall), boxy affair with a kerosene lamp inside and an
>> exhuast vent on the top, then it could indeed be from FW&D 31. If, however,
>> it is a smaller cylindrical headlight illuminated by a single light bulb in
>> the concave reflector, then it almost certainly was never mounted on the 31,
>> and the fact that it was manufactured by Buda would seem to date its
>> manufacture to the early 1900s, as electric lights were replacing oil lamps.
>>
>> The link to the photo of you headlight was not in your message, so I can't
>> tell what it looks like.
>>
>> Hol Wagner
>>
>> To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
>> From: chris.a.kay@comcast.net
>> Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 21:03:35 -0600
>> Subject: [CBQ] Help finding the history of FW&D engine 31
>>
>>> My grandfather, Robert W. Armstrong, was a VP of the FW&D railroad. One of
>>> the souvenirs he collected was the headlamp from engine 31 of the FW&D. I
>>> can't find a picture of this engine nor any history about the engine. I did
>>> find this picture of engine 38. The link is here:
>>>
>>> http://www.yesteryeardepot.com/FWD38.JPG
>>>
>>> I believe the headlamp on engine 38 looks like the headlamp I have
>>> installed in my backyard. Here's a picture of the headlamp I inherited from
>>> my grandfather.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I would really like to know more about the history of the engine and the
>>> headlamp. The headlamp came with a plate on top describing the manufacturer:
>>>
>>> "Buda-Ross"
>>> Headlamps
>>> Mfd by
>>> The Buda Co
>>> Chicago
>>>
>>> There's not much on the Internet about the headlamps or the Buda company.
>>> Any information about engine 31 or the headlamp would be greatly
>>> appreciated.
>>>
>>>
>>> Thank you very much,
>>>
>>>
>>> Chris Kay
>>
>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>>
>>
>>
>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>>
>>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
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