Here's the promised info on the E-1 0-4-0s. By 1880 the Burlington had developed a standard design for 0-4-0s, which were popular light switchers when the average length of freight cars was 30 feet and their average capacity was only 35,000 to 40,000 pounds. They were not used in big freight yards but primarily in smaller yards and at towns large enough to require a switcher. By the turn of the 20th Century they were pretty much reduced to that latter duty -- use in towns that required an assigned switcher -- and as shop switchers, or more appropriately, roundhouse switchers, where their short length often made it possible for them to fit on a turntable with another locomotive. To make this fit a greater possibility, a number of them were converted into tank engines and lost their tenders. By the early 1900s at least 10 of them were utilized in this service. Major locomotive shops, such as West Burlington, that didn't use a turntable did not require a tank engine, so a standard E-1 (and later G-1, still later G-3 0-6-0) was employed. This is the service in which the 562 in Louis's photo was used, and I have attached a cleaned up view of it, along with a view of the other side of the same engine at West Burlington in 1907. (It was retired in March 1914.) The Galesburg roundhouse shop switcher, 550, was unique in having been a tank engine for many years. It was one of the oldest locomotives on the roster at the time of the 1904 renumbering, having been built by McKay & Aldus back in 1869 as Rockford, Rock Island & St. Louis No. 1-"Pioneer." It became StLRI&C 1, Q 351, then 1351 in 1898 and received the first E-1 number, 550, in 1904. Most of the other conversions into tank engines (which don't seem to be documented in company records) appear to have occurred in the 1890s or very early 1900s. Three representatives of this group, B&MR 93, Q 552 and Q 576, employed at McCook, Lincoln and Alliance, are included in the attached images, as is a listing of early 20th Century division assignments for the E-1s. I have no assignment sheets earlier than 1907 for Lines East and 1914 for Lines West, and as can be seen from the list, the Lines East population of these diminutive locomotives declined from 17 in 1907 to just seven in 1914. All but three of the 1904 total of 28 E-1s (550-577) were gone by 1917. The 570 was retired in 1921, and as conversion of R-4 Prairies into G-10 0-6-0s rapidly used the numbers earlier occupied by the E-1s, the 553 was renumbered second 574 in November 1927, only to be scrapped before G-10 574 was completed in November 1929. The last survivor of the E-1 class, the 573, one of the tank engine conversions, lasted until March 1928, when it was sold to a gravel company in North Aurora, Ill., where it continued to work the firm's gravel pit until the late 1930s and sat derelict there for a number of years after that. Briefly considered by the Q for restoration as an exhibition engine for the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago, it was rejected because Northern Pacific had already resurrected an 0-4-0T for exhibition (the "Minnetonka"), and an engine of that sort was not really what the railroad was looking for to recall its pioneering history, so A-2 4-4-0 359 was backdated into a reasonable replica of an 1880s American type and numbered 35.
Since there are a number of photos, along with the assignment listing, I'll probably have to send them in at least two, more likely three separate messages.
Hope all this is of interest to at least some members of the group.
Hol
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Posted by: Hol Wagner <holpennywagner@msn.com>
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