Gentlemen,

I have been asked by the manager of the Three Rivers Rambler here in Knoxville, Tennessee to come up with replica Schenectady Locomotive Works builders plates for ex-Southern Railway 2-8-0 #154, an 1890 graduate of the same. I have what it takes to do the job (SolidWorks and my own cnc machining center), but I do not have measurements of an actual Schenectady plate. There are plenty of photographs online of builders plates, just none with measurements!

Would one of you have a Schenectady plate that he would be willing to photograph and take some measurements with calipers?

Thanks for your help,

Dave Queener
http://www.CumberlandModelEngineering.com
Dave at CumberlandModelEngieering dot com

Try the FACEBOOK site for locomotive builder's plates. There are enough of those plates out there to get you some measurements.

Kevin K

A Schenectady plate of that era would commonly be 7" tall by 13.25" long.

Dave, I would ask the manager to give you an accurate dimension between the existing hole centers (unless the smokebox has been replaced, there should be holes, likely plugged by bolts) and scale a photo of a plate from that. Measurements over the rough cast edges of another plate are fine, but it's a bummer when the existing holes won't line up with the proper locations on the new plate... don't ask me how I know.

154 has not had its builders plates in a very long time (or at least they can not be seen in the existing historical photos of the engine). My personal theory would be that they disappeared sometime around the renumbering of the engine from ETV&G 466 to SR 154 in 1896.

Current smokebox is not original.

The addition of these builders plates is going to be an incredible detail to the engine, the oldest operating Southern Railway steam locomotive and ONLY operating ETV&G locomotive.

Peyton Gupton
G&O Fireman

I have photographs of ETV&G 461 and 464. However, I do not think that they show enough fine detail to produce the needed images of the builder's plates.

Alan,

Are you referring to the photos in Prince's Southern Railway Steam Locomotives & Boats book?

If possible, high enough quality photos could show the correct wording for the plates.

For instance, an 1888 Schenectady plate has "Chas. G. Ellis, Pres." and "A.J. Pitkin, Supt" on it, whereas an 1898 plate has "Wm. D. Ellis, Pres." and "A.J. Pitkin, Gen. Mgr".

Peyton Gupton
G&O Fireman

No. I am referring to two actual prints that I have in my personal collection. I have one builder's photograph print and another that was an "action" shot taken somewhere on the line. These are prints that I purchased some twenty years ago from one of Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum's founding members, the late Herman Lamb. He kept a box of miscellaneous photographs at East Chattanooga, individually priced from one to five dollars. He was a serious photographer and photo collector, so he had a large collection of photographs-not surprising since he and his wife ran a camera and photography shop.

Another interesting print that I got from Herman was a large format color photograph of the last steam locomotive to run on the Southern. The photograph was taken from the old Third Street Bridge in Chattanooga and shows the Best Friend, 6330 and the diesels. So far as I am aware of, it's the only color photograph of that event. Back in 1953, color photography wasn't that common.

One of Herman's photographs made me put on my historian's cap and do a good deal of research. It was a photograph of a train wreck with a collapsed bridge and a steam locomotive dangling over the edge of the pier at a crazy angle, sans cab. All Herman could tell me was that it was a local train wreck. I routinely searched the newspaper microfilm reels at the local college I attended-they had over a hundred years of several of the regional major papers. I found that same photo published as part of a 1947 human interest story on a recently retired railroader. That gave me the month and year that the accident occurred-May 1907 and I was able to uncover the full story. It was bizarre to say the least.

Peyton,
Not to hijack the thread, but i saw on the TRR website that 154 is not going to be running much this Fall and Winter. If you could shed some light on that that would be greatly appreciated!

Another possibility is that the plates might have disappeared when the locomotives were converted from compound locomotives to simple. Based on the photographs I have, it appears that the high pressure cylinder was on the fireman’s side and the low pressure cylinder was on the engineer’s side. I suspect that they remained compounds until after the formation of the Southern Railway.

Dave - I will send you dimensions on my Schenectady #3263 from 1890 and I will send you photos in an email.

Ron Muldowney