October 5, 2015
Archie - Thanks. As the old saying goes, it never hurts to ask. Tell us
about the retired Q office cars if you can. Best Regards - Louis
In a message dated 10/4/2015 8:09:25 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
CBQ@yahoogroups.com writes:
Louis, I will be
glad to ask Bob if he has any info on the scrapping of locomotives. I do
know he was in charge of disposing of several of the Q heavyweights used as
official's cars as he let me copy the bill of sale etc. Archie
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 >.
Po st 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
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 closel y 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, tho ugh 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 d
id 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 (o r perhaps confusion) on when the railroad
considered a piece of equipment to be "retired."
Best regards,
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sat urday, 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 p ossible 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.comFrom: CBQ@yahoogroups.comDate: 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 b eing 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
[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.
D oes 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
retire d 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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