Re: [CBQ] FW: Antique 1 6 Plate Tintype Photo CB Q Railroad RR Train Engine L...

["LZadnichek@aol.com [CBQ]" <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>]

September 10, 2016

 

All - This subject has previously been discussed at length in mid-June of this year. I've cut/pasted some of the relevant posts below. General consensus indicated the locomotive was named Erastus Corning and was a "tiny" 4-4-0 constructed by Schenectady in 1852. To answer Rupert, the untreated hand hewn cross ties were standard for the era. Thanks to Randy for giving us a much clearer image of the mystery 4-4-0 (no way it's a 4-2-0). Best Regards - Louis

 

Louis Zadnichek II

Fairhope, AL  

 

In a message dated 9/10/2016 3:05:39 P.M. Central Daylight Time, CBQ@yahoogroups.com writes:

Rupert,

I surmised the 4-2-0 from the main rod angle intersecting with a vertical line through the cab and what I 'think' is the absence of space for 4 drivers.

That said, the number seems to be the compelling argument.

Randy

---In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, <gamlenz@...> wrote :

Randy

Thanks for this. It certainly looks like “275” on the dome just in front of the cab.

275 wasn’t listed in Corbin’s Steam Locos book so presumably it left the roster by 1898, but I’ve found a 275 in another roster compiled by John Wilde. Digging into the roster, it was apparently built in 1882 by “PGH” and is listed as an A-2. Other 4-4-0’s by the same builder in the group are 267, 268 and 277. “PGH” is also shown as the builder of D-3 #3000, which was Pittsburgh Loco Works.

Would hand hewn ties have been used for quarry or other temporary spurs?

Rupert Gamlen
Auckland NZ

- - - - - - -

I re-posted this thread to the Civil War RR  group and have one reply thus far:

John Ott jgorr11@yahoo.com [Civil_War_RRs] <Civil_War_RRs@yahoogroups.com>	10:58 PM (6 hours ago)
to Civil_War_RRs Man, that is a tiny engine.  Cabs were about 4-1/2 feet long in the early 1850s so the engine had about an 17-18 foot boiler 40"–46" in diameter, wagon-topped. After Photoshopping, you can barely see the rim of the front driver, which is roughly the same dimension as the cab, so 54"-56". Slant outside cylinders (tiny). Big, spoked, close-spaced pilot wheels. The valve trumpet on the steam dome and the ornate bell mount are very similar to the ones on lithographed Manchester engines of the late 1850s. Taunton and Schenectady made similar domes with trumpets. The Q had two major locomotive suppliers in its early days— Amoskeag and Manchester Locomotive Works. The few photos in my books show that most of them were bigger engines than the little teakettle in the picture. Also, most of the Q's early engines were inside-connected. There were also a few odd-ball 4-4-0s, one from Hinkley, one from Schenectady, and another from Taunton. This isn't a Hinkley and we have a photo of the Taunton— and this ain't it. There's a May, 1858 motive power report reprinted in Corbin and Kerka's Steam Locomotives of the Burlington Route that lists the engine Erastus Corning, a 4-4-0 built in 1852 by Schenectady, outside cylinders 14-1/2"x22", 53" drivers, 17-foot boiler 40" in diameter, 22 tons. I think Hol is right. This one seems about the right size and characteristics.  This engine doesn't appear on Thomas Taber's Antebellum American Railroads CB&Q roster. (On the RLHS website.) But there are gaps in his list, and there seems to be a lot of uncertainty about the Q's original roster. John Ott All- I haven’t been able to find much on ID’ing the loco, but it looks like Rogers, Ketchum & Grosvenor used a similar inclined cylinder and the steam dome with the extended brass structure. There is a guy who has done Sand Domes as a means of identifying early builders but he didn’t do Steam Domes so no help there. Knundsen does not have an as-built picture of a Chicago Locomotive Works 4-4-0 but their #17 “Thunder” built for the G&CU by Rogers, Ketchum & Grosvenor as their “Whirling Thunder” in 1853 looks very much like the CB&Q engine except for a later addition of a Sand Dome forward of the Bell.  Since the #58 was built in 1855 and the #57 in 1854 I think they are the best candidates for what we know right now.   The Manchester machines were more balanced looking with cylinders in-line with the driver centers which pretty much rules them out.   The two Scoville/Chicago Locomotive Works engines might still work but the rebuilt C&NW photo of one of their engines is heavily rebuilt c. 1880 so not much of the original appearance can be deduced so unless they were copies of the Rogers engines they are only held in reserve as possibilities. Charlie Vlk   Posted by: "Charlie Vlk" <cvlk@comcast.net> All- This is certainly a prize…..there being so few really early photos of CB&Q equipment. I would not be surprised if it was a photo of the “Chicago Branch” being constructed with the ties and derrick.  I’ll have to look through my photos but I don’t recall anything as spindly looking as this one.   I’ll have to look at Knudsen’s C&NW power to see if they have a picture of the Scoville/Chicago Loco works engines there.  Anyone notice the position of the Bell in the photo?   It certainly is shiny!!! Charlie   From: CBQ@yahoogroups.com [mailto:CBQ@yahoogroups.com] Sent: Monday, June 06, 2016 2:49 PM To: cbq@yahoogroups.com Subject: [CBQ] Help In Identifying Image - Ancient 4-4-0 [1 Attachment]     [Attachment(s) from LZadnichek@aol.com included below] June 6, 2016   Group - Here's a good one for the locomotive historians in our midst. The below inserted/attached very rare image of an ancient CB&Q 4-4-0 appeared on eBay this weekend and I passed it to Hol Wagner for his comments that follow. Does any one else have other ideas or comments on what 4-4-0 this locomotive may be? All I can add to Hol's comments is that I think the pile of wood in the foreground shows rough hewn untreated cross ties or, perhaps, bridge timbers; and that the 4-4-0 is coupled to either a large pile driver or bridge derrick with vertical boiler.       - - - -     Louis: I'll attempt to address this question, and if you feel it warrants posting to the CB&Q Group, feel free to do so. Identifying the locomotive in question is a difficult, if not impossible proposition.  The early date of the image is apparent because it is a tintype, the photographic image actually made on a thin sheet of iron (not actually tin, so thus more properly known as a ferrotype), and this method came into use in the mid-1850s and saw its widest use through the 1860s and 1870s.&nbs p; I'm attaching a flopped view of the image on eBay, so the lettering is a bit easier to read. The large C. B. & Q. R. R. lettering on the tender is obvious, but the smaller lettering on the cab side is harder to read, especially in the backwards image on eBay.  But, unfortunately for us, it simply reads C. B. & Q., and this was the standard form of lettering for Q locomotives from the railroad's inception through about 1875.  Perhaps the best example appears in the Manchester builder's photo of No. 120 on page 26 of Corbin's Steam Locomotives of the Burlington Route. The locomotive number (and earlier, until about 1860, the name) would have appeared on a metal medallion (oval for numbers) affixed to the side of the side of the boiler somewhere between the sand dome/bell and the smokebox.  Later, the number was simply painted on the sides of the sand dome and headlight.  But this locomotive has one of the fairly common and also fairly early small compartmented sand boxes (it can hardly be called a dome) with the bell mounted on top, and providing no flat surface for painting the number.  If the sand box was not usable, the number would be painted on the steam dome.  Examples of these features are well illustrated in the two photos of CB&Q 14 on page 22 of the Corbin book.  There may well be a number painted on the steam dome -- and the headlight -- of the locomotive we are trying to identify, but it is certainly not decipherable.  So we are left with trying to narrow the field by studying various features, and the May 1, 1858, listing of locomotives appearing on pages 254-255 of the Corbin book is a good starting point, because features of this locomotive lead me to believe it was not built later than that date and thus is among the 58 locomotives appearing on that list (two locomotives having already been disposed of by that time).  First off, as you have noted, the locomotive is outside connected, the cylinders, crossheads and main and side rods all being located outside the frame, as had already become the accepted practice by 1858.  Thus we can eliminate all the inside connected locomotives -- 29 of them, or exactly half.  Next identifier is the distinctive slope or slant of our locomotive's cylinders.  Although this feature was employed well into the 1860s by some builders, it was never used by others.  And among those who did not use sloping cylinders (as best I can determine) was Amoskeag and its 1856 successor Manchester, both located in New Hampshire's largest city.  This fact allows us to eliminate another 23 locomotives from the list, bringing the remaining number of candidates down to just six locomotives.  Our first two eliminations have already removed the locomotives with six rather than four driving wheels, but there is still a single ancient Baldwin-built 4-2-0, No. 3, the "Pigeon," which can also be eliminated, leaving just five possibilities.  Q steam locomotives were abandoning their names in favor of numbers during the late 1850s, numbered locomotives first being delivered at the start of 1855, though no locomotives have yet lost their names at the time of the May 1, 1858, list.  Of the five locomotives left for us to consider, two were built by Rogers, Ketchum & Grosvenor for the Chicago & Aurora in January 1855 with the numbers 57 and 58, as that road was just a month away from becoming the CB&Q.  Two more, the "Garden City" and "Stranger," had been turned out in 1854 by the Chicago Locomotive Works, probably also for the Chicago & Aurora, though possibly for one of the other constituent roads that would come under the CB&Q name in 1856. They would become CB&Q 41 and 42.  And the final candidate is th e oldest, an 1852 Schenectady locomotive named "Erastus Corning," and again it is not known which of the component roads the locomotive was built for or acquired by.  It became CB&Q 8 when numbers were assigned. A word or two about Erastus Corning.  A resident of Albany, N.Y., he was an iron-maker and hardware merchant by trade and had been president of the Utica & Schenectady Railroad since 1833.  He also served as mayor of Albany and was a New York State senator.  In 1846 he and a number of other New Yorkers associated themselves with John Murray Forbes, becoming known informally as the Forbes Group, and supported construction of the Michigan Central, and after it reached Chicago, of the Aurora Branch/Chicago & Aurora and also the Northern Cross and Central Military Tract roads that formed the nucleus of the CB&Q.  Corning, Iowa, on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad (Iowa) would be named for him.  As for the Burlington locomotive bearing Corning's name, it is something of a mystery.  His Utica & Schenectady Railroad received a pair of Schenectady 4-4-0s, construction numbers 8 and 9, in March 1852, the latter one named "E. Corning."  But these were high-wheeled speedsters with 78-inch drivers and 16x20-inch cylinders.  Three months later, in June 1852, Schenectady records show that it built, under construction number 11, a 4-4-0 with 60-inch drivers and 14x22 cylinders for the Milwaukee & Mississippi Railroad as its No. 5, named "E. Corning."  But that locomotive, built for the original component of the Milwaukee Road, apparently stayed there, becoming Milwaukee & Prairie du Chien 5, "E. Corning," and then Milwaukee & St. Paul 75, named "Milwaukee."  Still, the 1858 listing of Burlington locomotives shows the "Erastus Corning" as having 141/2x22-inch cylinders and 60-inch drivers.  And the only other 4-4-0 with similar dimensions turned out by the infant Schenectady Locomotive Works during 1852 was a sister to Milwaukee & Mississippi 5: No. 6, "James M. Lowry," built in August 1852 under construction number 15.  Like the 5, it became Milwaukee & Prairie du Chien 6. "James M. Lowry," and the Milwaukee & St. Paul 76, apparently with no name.  So it seems possible that the original owner of Milwaukee & Mississippi's "Erastus Corning" was actually one of the CB&Q component roads, though it may have been the other way around, the Q getting the locomotive from the Milwaukee & St. Paul by 1858.  Not knowing the actually chronology of these Milwaukee Road predecessors, I can't say if  the timing works or not. At any rate, all five of our possibilities for being the locomotive in the photograph have small cylinders -- either 141/2x22 or 15x22 inches -- whereas nearly all the other locomotives on the 1858 listing, with but three exceptions, have either 15- or 16-inch cylinders.  And the locomotive in the tintype certainly has small cylinders.  So I feel pretty confident in concluding that it is one of the five locomotives suggested above. Another note:  The Q was rapidly converting its locomotives from wood to coal for fuel in the late 1850s, and we can't see which fuel is in the tender of the locomotive in the photo.  The large pile of what appears to be sawn wood several feet in length in the foreground of the photo does not look like the somewhat shorter split wood commonly used for locomo tive fuel.  Of the five locomotive possibilities, only one was a coal-burner by May 1, 1858.  But I would venture a guess that the tintype dates to the 1860s, though not later, based as much as anything on the large size of the pile driver/derrick or whatever coupled behind the locomotive -- and that machine's vertical boiler would in all likelihood still have been burning wood as late as the 1870s.  Additionally, the old style sand box with bell on top would have been replaced by a larger sand dome fairly early and certainly no later than the late 1860s.  Again, not knowing the chronology of the Milwaukee Road, the date of this photo, whatever it may be, might well eliminate the "Erastus Corning" from consideration.  I'm sure Charlie Vlk would love for this to be one of the two Chicago Locomotive Works (more accurately, Chicago Locomotive Company) engines, but we are unlikely to be able to either prove or disprove that.  The Chicago Locomotive Company built only 10 locomotives between 1853 and 1855, all but the two Burlington ones being for the Galena & Chicago Union.  There's a good history of this company, put together by Hayes Hendricks, at http://www.midcontinent.org/rollingstock/builders/chicagocar.htm. Whatever locomotive it may show, the tintype is a great, previously unknown, photo of very early Burlington operations. Hol - - - - I know I speak for all Group members in sincerely thanking Hol for sharing his tremendous knowledge of CB&Q subjects with all of us. It always amazes me at just how much Hol knows, not to mention his complete willingness to share that information. I've learned so much from Hol as I'm sure many of our other Group members also have. Isn't this a GREAT Group to belong to...and isn't Hol a GREAT resource for us all! Best Regards - Louis Louis Zadnichek II  Fairhope, AL     Posted by: "Charlie Vlk" <cvlk@comcast.net> __._,_.___ Posted by: LZadnichek@aol.com Visit Your Group New Members 1 • Privacy • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use __,_._,___