One small addition to Bill’s excellent response on this matter. There were cab signals on the “east end” (Aurora-Chicago) too. I rode in many a dinky double deck control cab watching the cab signals and listening to all the audio alerts from it.
Leo Phillipp On May 12, 2022, at 3:32 PM, Bott, Eric H. <eric.h.bott@outlook.com> wrote:
Bill:
For some reason, I didn’t get your post until Hol’s showed up with it attached. Thank you so VERY much for clarifying a lot of my questions—much appreciated!
Best Regards,
-Eric
Sent from
Mail for Windows
From: HOL WAGNER
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2022 2:18 PM
To: CBQ@groups.io
Subject: Re: [CBQ] O-5 Tender and Info Sought
Bill has summed up the O-5s very concisely and thoroughly. And if you're looking for photos of the tender of one of the oil-burning O-5-Bs the Flickr photo portion of the BRHS website has a good many, particularly in the 5632 Fantrips
album.
Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device
-------- Original message --------
From: William Barber <clipperw@gmail.com>
Date: 5/12/22 11:42 AM (GMT-07:00)
Subject: Re: [CBQ] O-5 Tender and Info Sought
Eric,
Let me see if I can answer some of your questions. Unfortunately, I don’t have an O5 tender available.
1. The “B” designation definitely indicates that the locomotive is set up to burn oil. While a number of Q locomotives were converted to burn oil as far back as the 1920s, The “B” designation did not appear
until about 1950 when the Q converted six 4-8-4s and two 4-6-4s to burn oil. The O5s that were converted were 5614, 5620, 5626, 5627, 5629 and 5632. The two S4 Hudsons converted were 4002 and 4003. The oil burning locomotives were all assigned to Lines West.
The 5629 on display at the Colorado RR Museum was among those converted to oil, but because it was built as a coal burner in 1940, it has a designation plate that identifies it as an O5A. The plate appears on the cylinders, I believe and includes the class,
the year built and West Burlington, but no construction number. The construction number may have appeared on the AFE that authorized their construction. That is the only “builders plate” that the Q applied. Many of those disappeared long before the end of
steam.
2. Some of your questions about which group of locomotives had which details, can be answered if you look at the 4-8-4 album in the Flickr gallery in the members only section of the BRHS website. There are
many photos of all of the variations of the 36 4-8-4s and the details changed over time. The Q had basically three variations of the O5 class. The first eight, as you note, were built entirely by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1930. They were basically elongated
versions of the 12 S4 class Hudson 4-6-4 locomotives built at the same time. They are distinguished by the Elesco bundle type feed water heater located in front of the stack, standard open cabs and all welded tenders. They all originally had spoked driving
wheels.
The second group, 5608 - 5620, assembled at West Burlington Shop in the mid 1930s, were similar, except they had Worthington SA type feedwater heaters located in front of the stack and the Worthington cold
water pump located on the pilot deck behind a shield. They had standard open cabs and riveted tenders. The boilers came from Baldwin, but the Baldwin plate only referred to the boilers being built on an extra order number and all the boilers had the same extra
order number. As for the drivers, that can be somewhat confusing as the Q had a habit of switching them around. In later years, most of this group had boxpok drivers, but there were exceptions. A good example was 5618. Early photos show it with boxpok drivers
in all four positions. However, photos in early 1940s show that all but the main driver had been changed out to spoke drivers. It was still that way when it powered a fan trip to St. Paul in 1958 and it went to scrap that way. The main driver on this group
of locomotives were always a boxpok driver.
The third group of O5s, 5621 - 5635 were built between 1938 and 1940 at West Burlington and were similar to the second group except that they had an all weather enclosed cab, solid pilots and a more streamlined
shield covering the cold water pump on the pilot deck. All were built with boxpok drivers, but for some reason, 5621 was converted to spoke drivers in the 1, 3 and 4 positions shortly after it was built. There are photos of 5621 in the Flickr album, taken
in 1957, which show that it still had the spoked drivers. There is also a photo of 5621, taken right after construction that shows it with a boiler tube type pilot which was soon changed out to the solid pilot.
3. I don’t know where steam
locomotives.com got their information, but I have never seen any information indicating that two of the Baldwin O5s were modified for lignite coal. All of my information indicates that all eight locomotives were identical and the fireboxes and ashcans were
all the same. According to the Q 1935 roster, the O5s were equipped with L & B front ends, which I believe indicates both lignite and bituminous coal burning capability. The L & B front in was a type of netting mounted inside the smokebox. The Q did experiment
with some different staybolt arrangements in later years on some locomotives, notably 5600. According to the 1935 roster, both the hudsons and the first eight O5s were built with boosters, but they were all removed when the locomotives were upgraded in the
mid 1930s. According to that same roster, 5606 and 5607 had boosters in 1935. I don’t have an earlier roster, but I believe they were built with the boosters.
Around, 1950, Mars lights were applied to most but not all hudsons, O5s and 2-10-4s. Locomotives operating out of Chicago were equipped with the electrical box on top of the boiler for cab signal, used on
the C&I between Aurora and Savanna, IL. Some locomotives had both the control box and Mars lights; some only had Mars lights. Some locomotives on Lines West had Mars lights but had no need for cab signal as the C&I was the only part of the RR so equipped.
For instance, 5632, a Line West oil burner, didn’t get cab signal until until the third year in fan trip service, about 1961 or 1962.
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