We all know that cars, trucks, and motorcycles usually have titles to help establish the vehicle’s rightful owner. However, how do you prove that a steam locomotive belongs to you and that it is legal to sell it? This 1924 American Locomotive Works 0-8-0 steam locomotive for sale on Facebook Marketplace in Chadwick, Illinois has caused an incredible stir in the railfan community. This former Grand Trunk Western switcher’s history is one of the most improbable of any steam locomotive. However, it now sits forlorn on a siding supposedly owned by the seller. Some claim museum ownership and others claim the seller has the rights to it because it was abandoned on their property over a decade ago. Who is right here? Does it have a chance to ride the rails once again, or is it destined to be scrapped after a century of against-the-odds survival with an asking price of $200,000? Thanks to Kiwie49 for this highly unusual find!
The story of this locomotive is long, convoluted, and controversial. It was built by the American Locomotive Company in 1924, delivered to the Grand Trunk Western Railroad, and numbered 8305. With a 0-8-0 configuration, it would be generally used for low-speed switching duties. The GTWRR was an American branch of the Grand Trunk Western Railroad of Canada. Its lines stretched through the upper Midwest and the carrier hauled mainly industrial products, agricultural commodities, and raw materials throughout the area. While most railroads switched entirely to diesel locomotives shortly after World War II, the GTWRR ran its last scheduled steam passenger train in 1960. While some of those final steam locomotives ended up in parks or museums, most were taken to scrapyards to be unceremoniously cut up.
It was at the scrapyard that the tale takes an unexpected turn. Once 8305 was delivered to Northwestern Steel and Wire in Sterling, Illinois along with fourteen other doomed stable mates, the managers of the scrapyard determined that a few in this string of locomotives had a lot of life left in them. It was likely that the better engines had been rebuilt in the railroad’s massive shops at a prior date and used sparingly as the use of diesels became more widespread. Northwestern already had a long tradition of using steam switchers in their sprawling scrapyard and would exclusively use steam engines for these tasks to the final run, which occurred on December 10, 1980. During the years that these engines were used, Northwestern had a reputation for running their locomotives to the point they were dangerous due to the company’s lack of maintenance and poor operational practices. The company also attracted railfans like a picnic attracts flies, much to the annoyance of the company’s staff and management. Despite their reputation, Northwestern ended up being the last company to operate steam in the United States outside of tourist railroads. The extent to which 8305 was used at the scrapyard is not well documented.
A few of these locomotives managed to escape the scrapper’s torch even then. The last one to run ended up being towed to and mounted outside the home of the company president, which was turned into a museum. From there, 8305 (numbered 05 at Northwestern) becomes a bit of a mystery. Some reports have it and a few other surviving steam locomotives being pulled to a siding to be saved. Sadly, some of them didn’t escape the torch but 8305 survived because it was at the back of the line. It may have also belonged to the Illinois Railroad Museum but then subsequently sold to a private individual. Its tender got moved to Iowa, but somehow the rest of the locomotive never made it to its final destination. Sitting abandoned to the elements and at the mercy of vandals over the years has resulted in several items being stolen off the engine and nature taking its toll.
The railfan forums immediately noticed when this locomotive popped up on Facebook. Some think it is a scam, others think that the person selling it may own the property but doesn’t have the legal authority to sell the locomotive. The more seasoned posters all agree that this engine is too far gone to be restored to operating condition. The missing parts and corrosion combined with speculation that the asbestos boiler lagging is still present make this an epic money pit. All of the posts agree that the $200,000 asking price is way out of line.
Perhaps the saddest part of the story is that this engine escaped death for a century, but its immediate future is grim. It would be nice if someone could save it and perhaps just cosmetically restore it. Putting it back into service could be accomplished if you basically replaced every part. Steam engines are widely regarded as one of the largest holes you can throw money down if you intend to make them operational. An 0-8-0 switcher in this condition simply cannot pull enough passenger cars at a tourist railroad over its service life to generate enough revenue to make a restoration make sense. There are many much more suitable candidates for restoration in much better condition waiting for their chance to return to the rails. Hopefully, someone with deep pockets will come along and save this one. Enough steam locomotives have been torched already.
What do you think should happen to this forlorn locomotive? Do you think it has any chance at survival, or has it reached the end of the line? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
Nice work, Jeff, and great find, Kiwie49!
I’m with Scotty, and judging by the energetic responses below, maybe there outta be a BF spinoff…Field Finds…Loco Finds? (just kidding)
I’m with everyone here, and due to my life experiences, love this.
Great write up Jeff!!!!!
As a kid, I played on many old steam loco’s, that were park pieces.
I’d love to see this as a display piece, but the cost of relocating would be prohibitive.
It’s history that needs to be preserved for our kids, grandkids, great grandkids, etc.
Nothing to say, except, WOWITY-WOW, why BFs is my favorite site, you just don’t see this stuff anywhere else, and the priceless stories they bring up, so settle in, folks, possible long one, filters permitting, locomotives simply fascinate me, and no better place than central Colorado. I still can’t figure out how they even work at all, much less pull MILLIONS of pounds of freight. Ironically, our town is welcoming back a Rio Grand caboose TODAY, that was restored, and the only remnants of the 2nd largest rail facility in Colorado at one time. My town lies on the once most traveled rail line, with engineering marvels all along the way. The Alpine tunnel, incredible, and boasted the steepest, non-gear driven rail in the world. The city of Leadville, about an hour away, weather permitting, has a short rail line, formerly a supply route for the nearby Climax mine, still in operation, and using an older diesel/electric, see image of me at the controls!. I expected the Millenium Falcon, but was really pretty simple. Anyway, they have a locomotive scheduled for repair, its an Alco-Brooks 2-8-0( 2 little front wheels, 8 drive wheels, and no back wheels) and are looking for help. We’ll see, but many locomotives were retrofitted with diesel boilers, and what REALLY blew me away, is the incredible amount of water these used. You know the tender, not pictured here, I always thought was a big carrier for the coal, not so, it’s a BIG WATER TANK, 14,000 GALLONS! The coal is only in the front. Depending on load, these would use between 300 and 500 gallons, PER MILE! Stopping for water was like every half hour, and some siding tanks had to be HAND PUMPED. That and grease. Locomotives had to be greased every 50 miles. THAT, my friends, was as good as it got. Naturally, diesels eliminated most of that, sadly, just as trucks were taking away their freight and cars the passengers, and never recovered. I believe the last passenger locomotive came through my town in 1964, and the track, which connected Pueblo with Glenwood Springs abandoned in 1997. There was talk of returning the rail, but too many “NIMBYs” today.
This engine?( not a motor!) Out come the torches. As is, these weigh about 225,00 pounds, times $50/pound( in Texas, apparently, more like 120/ton everywhere else) that will be its eventual fate. To transport and restore one is incredibly labor intensive and costly, and people willing to do such projects are disappearing.
HOWEVER, if properly marketed, many outfits across the country still operate locomotives, and parts are not at the local AutoPLace, so there will be interest.
Special thanks to Jeff and BFs for bringing history at a touch of a button, now if this comment takes, all the better. :),if the comment takes, :(, if not,,
Oops, forgot the pic,,it’s an Electro-Motive Geep, a small switcher too, and remarkably simple. A throttle, F-W lever, couple gauges, and of course, the horn. No, I didn’t drive it, but was pretty cool.
F-R lever.
Oh, oh, one more, sorry, but our local museum has a locomotive on display. It’s a Porter 0-4-0T, and unique, in that the “T” stands for tank, and featured an odd looking wrap around tank around the boiler, only used for switching. It’s in need of restoration, and 4 people already backed out. Not sure I have the “steam” to do that. My neighbor, who is 76, grew up in this town, and as a kid, went down to the tracks to pick up coal that had fallen off the tender. She’s seen a lot of changes, to say the least. The Rio Grande had this beautiful Art Deco depot/motel, with ornate wood benches and design. After the trains went bust, many had hoped the Rio Grande would save the building. On Jan. 23, 1985, a crew came in at night, and demolished the depot. Citizens were outraged, the rail deemed it a liability.
Get a hold of the local train museum or society.See what they can do, sure they could do something, they already priced it l hope someone ends up with it, good luck 👍
Riding that train, high on cocaine,Casey Jones you better watch your speed…
Actually, not so simple. To move a loco around, yes, the controls are simple. Pulling a train, without wheel slip, without breaking a knuckle deep in the train…stopping, which requires planning, consideration of slack (stretched or bunched) and also requires warming the brakes (brakes don’t dig in until they’re warmed up) requires months of training and years of experience.
I speak as a 20-year retired locomotive engineer.
What model was that, Howard? The GP series ran from the GP7 to the GP60…which was an immense road locomotive. The GP meant “general purpose” and originally were such that they could be used as switchers or road power. By the time they had gotten to the GP60, it was simply an SD60 with four axles instead of six. The AT&SF (Santa Fe) was the only railroad to buy them.
The smallest GPs were GP-15s; the most common, GP-38s. Those were the backbone of Conrail’s power for many years in the 1980s.
I read it is a GP9 from Northern Pacific.
Cool info! As a mechanical engineer who still refers to a hard copy of the Steam Tables, I want this in my back yard, but that won’t happen. I would have loved to experience that rail trip from Pueblo to Glenwood Springs, but the closest I ever came was driving along a short piece of that route between Glenwood Springs and Aspen/Snowmass on a couple of ski trips in 1979 and 1981. I still consider that among the most beautiful drives of my life. I remember seeing the train tracks running along the river and thinking that I would like to experience that route via train.
The old ( 85 ) snowbirds across the street from me mentioned Leadville and I read extensively about it,very interesting indeed.
Being a railroad fan my whole life and my wife working for the railroad in her early years it’s sad to see something like this with no future.
This is a great write up, with a lot of heavy time consuming research. Its just so sad that this locomotive is in such a sad state, but yet amazing at the same time that it escapped the scrappers torch. I really wonder whats going to happen to it.
And HoA thanks for sharing all that extra i fo and pictures too. I always learn something new every day on Barnfinds.
Tip of the iceberg, my friend. If interested, I strongly suggest looking up “the “Alpine Tunnel”. The DSP( Denver,South Park), a regional line, was looking for a shortcut to Gunnison. The current route then was to come into Salida, then south to Marshall Pass and west. Cutting the corner would theoretically save a days travel. They grossly underestimated the job, and took almost 3 years. The 1700 foot tunnel was dug by an army of men with picks and shovels, averaging 2-3 feet/day. It was abandoned once, a new company completed the tunnel by shoring it up with huge redwood timbers. THEN, a thing called the “Palisades Wall” had to be made. They hoisted, somehow, huge blocks of stone up a sheer cliff, to make the roadbed for the train. They had to adhere to a 4% max grade( 4 foot increase for every 100 feet) and I think a 26 degree radius for turns. An engineering marvel for late 1800s. Sadly, the tunnel was only used for about 20 years, as the silver boom went bust, the line wasn’t needed, and the tracks were pulled in 1927. The tunnel remains, although both ends are caved in, but the tunnel and wall are still there, a testament to the job.
Mining then was huge, and our town was the transfer point for mined ore to the smelter in Pueblo. One problem, due to space, the mining trains used narrow gauge, and the track to Pueblo was wide gauge, so they made a tipping device. The loaded narrow gauge gondola was raised by this gargantuan device with huge counter weights, and tipped and unloaded into the wide gauge car. Previously shoveled by hand! The city had like 12 sidings, 2 roundhouses, holding 10 engines each, and big repair facility,,,,all gone. Winter was naturally their biggest obstacle. They had huge steam rotary snowblowers, that had to be pushed by sometimes 4 or 5 locomotives, clearing a path, only to be covered again on the return trip. It must have been a heck of a life
Not sure where to start Howard, this article and your posts went right to my bailiwick.
First, have you checked out the “Big Boy” 4-8-8-4 engine No. 4014 up in Cheyenne? It is one of 25 built starting in 1941. Mind boggling size and scale. It was restored and made a historic run to commemorate the Transcontinental RR in 2019. Large crowds showed up enroute to watch it go by, including me. My Dad was a brakeman on one for a period between mining jobs. Everyone interested in steam should go to the Union Pacific website, she’s going on another run this year.
Along with my Dad, I had uncles, brothers, cousins, and myself that were miners, not lifelong but for big chunks of our lives. Hardrock mines from Butte MT (where I was hatched), to Lead-Deadwood SD, to Leadville CO, to San Manuel NM. I did stints as a teenager at the Homestake Gold in Lead, open pit coal in WY before finishing my degree. Been around a few types of mining, its equipment, and trains (surface and underground.) The “tipper” you described is I believe a tipple, are large and small, surface and below. And I’m sure explosives were used to build the Alpine, the holes would have been “drilled” in the rock by steel bits on rods held and turned by one (trusting) guy while another swung a double jack hammer to drive it.
Interestingly, we used mostly electric “motors” (locomotives) to tow ore and mancars at Homestake and the controls operated the same as what you are sitting at. We also had a few air motors still operating (this was around 1974) and they were fascinating. Riveted iron tanks filled with compressed air from the surface, they looked like tiny steam locos, and sounded like them too…chug chug…you could hear them coming down the drift.
I got way too much info in my noggin, best to stop now.
This article and posts went right to my bailiwick.
First, have you checked out the “Big Boy” 4-8-8-4 engine No. 4014 up in Cheyenne? It is one of 25 built starting in 1941. Mind boggling size and scale. It was restored and made a historic run to commemorate the Transcontinental RR in 2019. Large crowds showed up enroute to watch it go by, including me. My Dad was a brakeman on one for a period between mining jobs. Everyone interested in steam should go to the Union Pacific website, she’s going on another run this year.
My Dad, and my uncles, brothers, cousins, and myself were miners at times in our our lives. Hardrock mines from Butte MT, Lead-Deadwood SD, Leadville CO, to San Manuel NM. I did stints as a teenager at the Homestake Gold in Lead, open pit coal in WY before finishing college. Been around a few types of mining, its equipment, and trains (surface and underground.) The “tipper” Howard described is I believe a tipple, which are used on and below surface operations. And I’m sure explosives were used to build the Alpine, the holes would have been “drilled” in the rock by bits on “drill steels” held and turned by one (trusting) guy while another swung a double jack hammer to drive it.
Interestingly, we used mostly electric “motors” (locomotives) to tow ore and mancars at Homestake and the controls operated the same as what you are sitting at. We also had a few air motors still operating (this was around 1974) and they were fascinating. Riveted iron tanks filled with compressed air from the surface, they looked like tiny steam locos, and sounded like them too…chug chug…you could hear them coming down the drift.
I can only imagine what my wife would say if I brought this home.
“Honey, I have finally moved on from project cars.”
She would have you sleeping in it until the threat of a tornado. Then you could claim your redemption.
I am facing a similar problem, I am in the middle of trying to buy a 1962 ex London RM bus and for some reason she does not want it in the back garden! the bus needs total restoration but is well worth saving and a man needs a hobby!
I don’t have that problem and all of my married friends hate me. Don’t ask for permission ask for forgiveness.
Free S&H?
Establishing legal authority over this engine is a whole glorious can of worms. The GT&WRR has officially been ruled out when it gave up the engine as scrap, and became the sole responsibility/liability of the scrap yard. A legal Bill of Sale would have to be provided by any party, citizen or museum to claim ownership past the scrapyard. The land owner could press ownership through abandonment depending upon the length of time they have held the deed of the property against the provisions of a BOS if one can be brought forth. If such a BOS is found and proves legitimate, the landowner can file a lein for storage regardless of circumstances originating in the storage of said locomotive, and if the property right of way of said trackage is still active. That’s the basics. I’m sure a few lawyers could entangle this and dispute the situation even more so.
I’m more interested in the legalities of ownership than the loco itself. This kind of stuff fascinates me.
In a creek off the Ohio River near Cincinnati, there’s an abandoned steam yacht named the Sachem (google has an interesting history of the ship). The previous owner passed on, and it supposedly belongs to the landowners – however the Coast Guard at one point was consulted and said that the creek is a navigable waterway and legally anyone could claim salvage.
If I ever win the powerball, restoring something like that yacht would be on my short list.
Yeah, I’ve seen the pictures of Sachem back in that creek. I believe she’s on the Kentucky side of the river is she not? If so, being as Ky is chartered as a commonwealth state, some of the legalities might be a bit different, given bearing on time, permissions and so forth.
Perhaps another BF story?
I grew up across the river from Northwestern Steel & Wire and my Grandpa worked for them for several years. My dad rented a shop just off the tracks at the mill about the time the last locomotive was retired. The locomotives were originally coal fired and then they were converted over to oil at some point. The Ave. G bridge goes right over the mill so we always had a good view of the yard and there were always a couple locomotives below. The Dillon Home Museum is one of those period type museums that gives a history of the family and the mill.
There is no standardized titling for locomotives, as there is with a motor vehicle. There is, however, a builder’s plate, a serial number assigned; and since most locomotives are sold with a bank lien (most are leased, these days) there is a way to track them.
Up until about 1950, locomotives were purchased directly by railroads and often built by them. Norfolk & Western had elaborate shops that designed and built most of their own steam power. I believe the Pennsylvania constructed many of their own as well.
In this case, ownership was passed and recorded from the GTW to this company, Northwest. At some point it became, essentially, abandoned property – and IF there is no record of any storage or donation agreement with the land owner, it essentially becomes property of the landowner by default. Not unlike a situation with a barn-find in a barn purchased by a new owner, no title, no desire by the seller to keep it.
Given the appearance of this locomotive by the photos, it was probably not built as a switcher but as a 2-8-2 or 2-8-4. It was common practice at short lines and industrial yards to make switchers out of old road power by removing the pilot and trailing trucks, to improve low-speed traction – all the weight on the driving wheels. At speeds, that makes things rough riding as the drivers want to climb off the rails, and the weight of the side rods increases rocking motions.
Salvage/restoration? Probably un-doable. FRA safety regulations on steam equipment, now, are stringent to where many preserved locomotives have been taken out of service for display only. Both Norfolk-Southern and the Union Pacific, I’m told, have curtailed their steam exibition programs. N&W 611, one of Norfolk & Western’s last-built steam units, is on display only. Liability issues, plus FRA requirements, have made these steam excursions costly and onerous.
Just MOVING it will cost huge amounts. Because of the age/design of wheel bearings used at the time – plus 44 years abandoned – it won’t be able to be cut into a train and towed. It would have to be towed at “restricted” speed with a bypass air hose around the braking equipment on the machine. That requires a lot of men, and ties up mainline traffic.
So, if it got moved by a railroad, it would have to be loaded onto a flatcar. Or flatcars – often in shipping new steam locomotives, say, export models with different wheel gauges, the boiler would be on one flatcar, the chassis on another, and the tender on a third.
Sad to say it, but it’s just scrap. Value comes from interest, but also location and time and cost to change that location.
J611 was pulling excursions last year. It might be getting maintenance now, but I don’t think it’s permanently on display.
Not that anyone’s paying attention this late in the game, but you’re absolutely wrong: these locos WERE INDEED built as 0-8-0s, not cut down from a larger locomotive. There’s no speculation on this part. We railroad historians are like the guys that can spout off Corvette, Indy Car, or Audi Quattro serial numbers and production numbers by heart, and if not we have the places/sources to look them up.
Here’s but one example of our geeky data record-keeping online:
https://www.steamlocomotive.com/locobase.php?country=USA&wheel=0-8-0
Mighty interesting! Just wondering what the power ratings on this would be (hp/torque).
While these put out around 3,300 hp, I don’t think torque, but rated in tractive effort in pounds.
If I owned this property I’d sand blast that beauty and repaint it cut the brush away and enjoy it. Fantastic write up by all who have commented especially HoA and thanks barnfinds awesome.
And no less than 6 long winded post and ” Nothing to say ” ?
This has been posted on some other sights for awhile and a few guys I know make it a regular stop on their car tours….maybe a scam.
Because “horsepower” in steam locomotives is a variable depending on fuel consumption and available steam pressure and temperature, the standard measure for steam locomotive power is “tractive effort”, calculated as cylinder diameter times cylinder stroke times 85% of maximum boiler pressure, all divided by driver diameter. In the case of these GTW 0-8-0s, that works out to 49,691 lbs–pretty darned powerful for a switcher, but still a design not conducive to over-the-road transit. (Think of pulling like a bulldozer as opposed to an over-the-road truck.)
I’m a longtime rail enthusiast who has been active in rail preservation for over 40 years now. Many of my fellow preservationists (and now, more properly, their heirs/successors) were involved in the initial “rescue” of representative examples of this NS&W fleet when they were finally retired from the steel mill in 1980. Some of us have been watching the saga of this last survivor from afar for decades now–in fact, I swung by to look her over the last time I was in the vicinity. Of all the steam locomotives left in the USA and Canada, this is probably the biggest, most notorious, and most abandoned/unclaimed one left not in some form of officially sanctioned “preservation.” (A few MUCH smaller ones lurk in barns or storage buildings owned by private individuals or estates, some in disassembled “kit” form.)
A lot of my thoughts and opinions have already been covered in the original write-up. The consensus among those “rail guys” with experience and “skin in the game” is that not only is this about the LEAST desirable steam locomotive extant from a historic, nostalgia, or operating perspective (representative examples have been saved elsewhere, after all), but that the alleged property owner (even assuming no one contests him/her over her right to do so) may at best end up either giving the loco to a scrapper to cut up and dispose of to get rid of it, or indeed might even have to PAY a scrapper to dispose of it, presuming they attempt asbestos remediation “by the book” at high expense and don’t just pitch it in a dumpster and hope nobody’s looking (as happens so often with asbestos now).
To put this into proper perspective:
1) The current condition of this locomotive is reminiscent of a trio of VW Karmann Ghias that two friends and I were forced to hunt down when a friend of ours “disappeared” owing a lot of money and having a lot of assets in storage–including an Audi Quattro, a 500-hp Jeep CJ-5, a “Super Beetle,” a racing Datsun pickup, a Jaguar E-Type, and more. We finally hunted down the Karmann Ghias to an open storage yard, and found them up to the frames in the dirt, wheels well sunk into what had been mud, open to the elements and completely rotted. We tried to jack them up and heard frames and fender supports breaking. We finally gave the lot owner (who had been a friend of the owner and hadn’t yet seized the cars for non-payment) verbal permission to “just bulldoze them down.” We later heard he brought in a friend’s backhoe to load the remains into a scrap dumpster.
The other perspective to bring to this is that the Illinois Railway Museum took possession of most of the steel mill’s fleet of steam locomotives after their 1980 retirement, and after several years of most of them languishing on the same siding this loco is on, traded FIVE of these locomotives, complete with tenders, all in better condition than this one, to a Chicago-area scrapyard in trade for ONE larger, more desirable steam locomotive which the scrap yard had, in a bit of irony, itself ended up with over a similar dispute over storage on another’s property:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago%2C_Burlington_and_Quincy_4963
In essence, imagine that someone traded five or ten old, clapped-out VW Beetle or Chevy pick-up truck carcasses for a potentially restorable 1957 Chevy sedan in the car scrapyard. Or five wrecked Peterbilt truck tractors for a 1950s Mack “Bulldog nose” fire engine. Or a couple Model T carcasses for a 1930s Cadillac.
And this one’s even WORSE. It should have been the first to be sacrificed, but just happened to be on the far end of the siding and was left behind after the five-loco swap. I honestly can’t see anyone at the Illinois Railway Museum, or the guy they sold it to in 2006, getting upset if this loco gets cut up for them. Now, on the other hand, IF anyone ever actually managed to sell this thing to ANY fool–say, sell it as a “work of urban decay art” or to a Hollywood studio to blow up on a movie set or whatever–then they deserve the award of “greatest salesman of all time,” OR the buyer earns “greatest sucker of all time”!
Regarding the fact that these things have no officially recognized “titles” as cars do: I once spoke to a long-time associate of mine and fellow rail preservationist who, rumor amongst my fellow rail nuts had said, had somehow bought, taken “possession” or otherwise claimed ownership of a particular diesel locomotive in limbo/purgatory somewhat similar to this one. I met him, shook his hand, and said, “Sooooo………………. word on the grapevine is that you supposedly now own that FP7 over at [specific railyard]………..” He paused for a moment reflectively, then said, “Well, it depends…………….. do you have a buyer for me, or do you want to hand me another storage bill??” I think it eventually got scrapped on the site.
Useless without the tender. How would I carry enough coal to drive it home?
Talk about range anxiety!
And imagine having to stop every half hour, and ask strangers for a couple 300 gallons of water!
300? Try more like 3,000!
Hmm I maybe just blowing steam here ….but looks like if one had a couple pieces of my Lionel train track i could track this home by continuously adding to the front of the track.
😉
GLWS …
My suggestion is donate it to a museum
When you acquire real estate whatever the seller leaves behind becomes the owner of the items unless otherwise stated in the closing documents and like most anything else if its on your property and it doesn’t belong you have the legal rights to dispose of it. If this was left on my property I would clean it up and enjoy it as a ornament
There is a complication with railroad sidings, however. rail sidings can be part of the property, or an easement acquired by the railroad, or even still owned by the railroad itself. I have no idea what applies in this specific situation, but there have indeed been instances of a property owner who assumed that a disused stretch of railroad right-of-way is now theirs as they own the property on both sides of it or whatever, only to discover that simply mowing the grass and parking your camper on the strip where the track was doesn’t automatically mean you own it now, when the railroad tries to reopen the siding or track.
All true, and probably the cost of a lawyer to sort it out, would exceed the value of this locomotive. Even assuming it could be moved off…not economically, but at all, in one piece.
I hadn’t caught that it was missing a tender. That lowers its value to preservationists.
That is true only if there is a railroad easement attached to the title to my knowledge railroad is not a utility so they would have separate right of way easement. This information should be attached to the deed and would show multiple lots if they didn’t actually own that stretch where the track is
Get the guy from Vice Grip garage involved by offering it to him free to drive it home.
We’d definitely be learning some new wordage!
1961-1965 rode steam trains all over Germany. They would chuff along thru the cut in our back yard behind the housing area in Bad Nauheim. I rode them from Bremerhaven to Bad Nauehim after crossing from NYC by the Patch…took 5 days…came back on the Darby…took 7 days as we stopped in England….Plymouth i think. In 1952 went over on a Boeing air liner based on the B-29…Strato-Cruiser….had a lower deck!
I dont know how long the Germans had Steam engines …prolly to replace the ones destroyed in the war. We came over right after the Berlin Wall went up….spent 3 years.
Those of you interested in railroad museums, Green Bay, Wisconsin has an excellent one. Numerous types, most in excellent condition.
Interesting Keith, that our fighter pilots, after escorting the bombers to the targets in Germany would go low altitude and hunt locomotives. (There weren’t a lot of German fighters left after we escorted all the way to the target for a while.)
The P-47 pilots were fine. Air cooled radials where they could even limp back home with a cylinder shot off, but the P-51 pilots? Water cooled Merlins. You get hit in the radiators, and you might be spending the rest of the war in Germany… Those guys were young and fearless though, I’m sure.
Ran when parked.
Aaaahhhhhhh……………. no, it didn’t!
If the loco has been left on someone’s property for a long time then the property owner can claim storage for it and get ownership through a little legal maneuvering. This will ultimately give him ownership.. Then he can sell it. I would not buy it without proof of ownership.
What would you do with it? Cannot be moved, so I guess scrape it for the metal! Then, what would that cost? An albatross for someone!
There are two critical items which I lack that puts me out of the market for this gem. Those items are:
(1) a loose 200 grand
(2) a trailer hitch for my Yugo
And (3) a hole in your head where your brain used to be.
Definitely one of the most interesting BF’s I’ve ever read!
As an aside, the North American P-51 “Apache” (Yanks) or “Mustang” (Brits… really!) had self-sealing cooling systems.
I’m glad JustPassinThru mentioned the N&W-built “J” class No. 611. What a magnificent machine. In the early ’50s I’d train from Penn Central Station to Christiansburg, VA, and the run from engine-switch Southern to N&W at Lynchburg on west to C’burg was generally behind 611 or one of its sisters. Four-chime steamboat whistles instead of the usual loco stuff. Runs shivers up your spine. Check out some of the videos under “N&W 611.” Get the Wikipedia writeup on it too. Fascination engineering our of the Roanoke yards.
I’ve given up on museum steam because they generally run at maybe 20 MPH instead of the nearing triple digits being run back in the ’30s-’50s. No wonder young’uns say “What’s the big deal about this?”
As a kid during WW2, steam-drawn commuter trains ran through our little town of Woodcliff Lake, NJ, so I kind of miss the sounds and smells of steam whistles and soft coal smoke, most of all the chuuuuuff-chuuuuff, chuff of the start upgrade to Park Ridge.
Had an uncle that lived in Batesville, Indiana when I was a little kid. Fun part there was watching the Dewitt Clinton passenger train go through the little town a bit over 90 mph, grabbing the mail bag at the same time. Threw dust, leaves, anything light all over town. Great fun for a little kid standing next to the station.
It wood be a shame not to restore it for if allowed to sit the Woke movement might determine it’s fate and have it permanently dismantled.
Some speculation about this showed up on Heavy Haul Nation, a fb blog for the trucking industry. The next place was in a Google news and now here.
Great article bfs.
This is part of our history as people of the world.
Future generations will ask if this isn’t restored “How did the raw materials get from point A to point B”
They’ll be nothing to show if it is further left to the elements or the Woke movement
hey yogi, you managed to mention the “woke movement” twice in your “comment”. Yubba-dubba-don’t.
Of course the Woke movement is further left than the elements!
That good old Woke Movement bogeyman. If something does not make financial sense to restore suddenly it is woke. There are millions more worthy projects that should be restored for prosperity than this incomplete money pit.
As many here today (and previously) have said, you never know what’ll turn up on BF. Really cool article, Jeff, and great find. The explanations regarding the feasibility of returning it to life and how it came to this place of rest is a good history lesson in travel of the width and breadth of our country-literally.
For those of you traveling across the northern part of Nevada, there are 3 places for steam engine aficionados to check out. On the northeast side of the state near the Utah border is Ely, of Northern Nevada Railway fame (56 acres)(https://nnry.com). Steam trains, steam crane, diesel locomotives and a working shop replete with the molds.
On the west side near the Northern California border is the V&T Railway of the Bonanza TV series going from Virginia City to the Carson City town line.
Both have steam train rides, though not as long as the ones around Howard’s place but well narrated.
Regardless of where, every old train is an irreplaceable part of history that can’t be replaced once they’re gone so go for a ride on one wherever you live.
My Dad was a boilermaker for the Erie railroad in Pennsylvania. We had free passes to travel. The sight, roar, and smell of these massive steam locomotives pulling into the station , was terrifying for a four year old!
“Took a little trip to keep from going insane, spent the rest of the night on the all night train!!!” Riding those white rails!!!
If you get it you get it!
Wild on gentleman!! Wild on!!
Just to add,the Mc Cormick park in Scottsdale has a 1906 Baldwin engine and a very old Pullman car.
Sorry to Hi Jack this, but, what happened to Fast Finds. It disappeared for me. Everything else is there. Is it just me with a glitch? Or is it gone?
My dad worked for the Fort Worth and Denver RR which later became Burlington Northern if my memory hasn’t failed me. The regional shop for maintenance was in Childress Texas. The oil was drained into the “oil creek” which drained into a small lake of perhaps 50 acres. The oil lined the edges of the lake and got on all of the plants around the edges, as well as our clothes, so mom knew where we had been. Periodically someone would set fire the the creek and the black smoke would roll. We left Childress in 1953 and I believe that was still the oil disposal method. The big regional shop building burned and was never rebuilt as far as I know. The lake is now a beautiful body of water with houses built all around. Time and microbes (I guess) did a great reclamation job.
I’ve heard that these handle like their on rails!
We have a great steam locomotive here in Roanoke-
(VA) – the “611”.It’s one of the coolest looking ones
ever.I have yet to see it being used.
Look up N&S 611 on Utube.
“I’ve heard that these handle like their on rails!”
They rock.
(literally; the connecting rods on the drivers are 45 degrees apart – each piston is double-acting, taking steam out and back in – but the weight of the couplers and rods, made many of them literally rock side to side.)
90 degrees
You’re right.
I failed geometry.
That’s why I wound up workin’ onna ray-road…
Cancel that.
It is 45 degrees.
One-quarter off.
So that both pistons are never at the end of their stroke – one is always able to be powered, either on the front or back of the piston.
That’s why they rock so at speed.
Ya failed math too!
45 degrees is one/eighth of 360, not a quarter.
Just sayin’…
Okay…busted.
We agree – one-quarter off on the rod/pin positioning.
My latest book is is being bid n by 3 movie guys, if even one of them comes through then i could have this on my 5 acre sight.LOVE TRAINS
I’d park this in my front yard and annoy the neighbors just by having it. Let all the kids climb all over it and get dirty.
roger that rumple !!
Sink it and use it as a moring!
I am late to the party. Where is the FB link?
Well, if someone can get it here, would be great as lawn art. Happy to park it in my yard.
Someone needs to send this to Jay Leno. Deep pockets, and he loves anything that is steam driven transportation.
Jay Leno did not get his money by being stupid. This would be as foolhardy as they come, even by antique/classic car standards.
Correction:
“An 0-8-0 switcher in this condition simply cannot pull enough passenger cars at a tourist railroad over its service life to generate enough revenue to make a restoration make sense.”
Never mind whether or not you could ever get this clapped-out wreck running again, but if you could, it most certainly COULD pull enough passenger cars on a tourist line.
The problem is that it would beat the living bejezus out of your track, turn curves into kinked tangents, turn tangents into roller coasters, and squash your crossties into a mud pit.
That was the experience of one of the first commercial excursion lines in the United States, the Strasburg Rail Road in Pennsylvania, when they acquired their first steam locomotive, a MUCH smaller 0-6-0 switcher from the Canadian National. The similar lack of lead or trailing guide wheels combined with its 78-ton weight and high center of gravity basically forced a complete rebuild of their track shortly after its 1960 arrival. That loco is still on the railroad’s roster undergoing a needed rehabilitation, but has not been seen in service for so long that there’s reasonably-founded speculation that it may never see service again, at least on that railroad (which now has superlative track that can handle it, but it’s just a rough-riding bronco compared to the others they now have).
To return to my earlier analogy, imagine using a tracked bulldozer to plow your driveway instead of a rubber-tired backhoe or soft-tracked Bobcat.
I went on a college term trip to Vienna Austria in the fall of 1970. We took a two-day excursion to Budapest Hungary where they still used steam locomotives.
https://youtu.be/j7EbEyyJ0gM?feature=shared&t=215
This is from 1979 when she was last working at NW steel. From what I have heard, they were not in the best of shape and you could hear the gear just clunking around in the very, very worn bearings.
Thanks to all who participated in this post, I hope it helped folks remember loved ones that these were an everyday part of their lives.
By the way, I read, those locomotives billowing clouds of smoke, was actually not true. I’ve seen photos of locomotives pulling long loads, and not much smoke at all. I read, many times, for photos, the engineer would run the engine “rich”, or smoke added to the photo later. Smoke meant progress, not pollution. Hard to imagine travel like this as we zoom along out 6 lane interstates today at speeds unheard of then. Special thanks to BFs staff.
Has any road vehicle 🚗 of any type ever attracted as many comments on BF as this venerable old coal burner? I am certainly not complaining because I found most of the comments informative and interesting.
I’m absolutely blown away by the response to this loco, it’s the most comments I’ve ever seen on barn finds.
As I’ve mentioned in another locomotive thread on BF, I drove a tourist locomotive for nine seasons on Panama City Beach, totaling over 20,000 miles. This is a picture of me leaning out of the engineer’s seat in 1977. It is ex-Argent Lumber Co. number 1, operated from Hardeeville, SC until 1958. I recently visited a sister loco at the Hardeville Library, and while there asking questions, a fellow who happened to be there, came up to me and announced himself to be the son of the fireman on several Argent locos. Awesome experience.
A man that loves driving automobiles will find heaven driving a steam locomotive. Power, personality, nostalgia – and the whistle! The 0-8-0 in this listing would make a great display, but, Lord have mercy, the manpower it would take! You could easier pave a road and parking lot next to it for people to visit where it sits.