Trying to solve a bit of a mystery.

In the 1950's a pair of brothers Fred and Floyd Perry who operated the Perry Brothers Machine and Welding Works in St. Augustine, FL built a rather impressive 24 inch gauge 4-6-2 Pacific pictured here:
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=102 ... 4963725175

The engine operated on an extremely short lived operation outside St. Augustine called the Florida Southwestern Railway. Sometime in the 1960's the locomotive came into the possession of Elliott Donnelley wealthy printing magnet and railfan who owned or funded several miniature and narrow gauge locomotives many of which ended up at the Hesston Steam Museum.

The photo below taken in the late 1960's shows the locomotives tender sitting at Sandley Light Railway Works (see in the background). I have been told the tender and the locomotives frame/drivers were sent to Sandley to have a new boiler constructed. This work never occured and the engine disappeared from Sandley sometime in late 1969 or early 1970.
https://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr0703/md001.jpg

The trail goes cold at that point and the engine just seems to disappear. The Hesston Museum doesn't appear to know anything about it although they do have a 24" gauge speeder that came from the Florida Southwestern in their collection.

These look like two different engines. Where did the extra driver go in the second image?

Opps. Not the locomotive the thing in the back ground. I should read a little more crefully.

The second photo is captioned "Riverside and Great Northern", there is a preservation group which maintains this 15" line, the old Sandley operation in Wisconsin Dells WI: https://dellstrain.com/museum-history/ I couldn't find a mention of your locomotive but the group might know what happened to it.

I was Elliott's train Mechanic/Machinist at his Estate in Lake Forest, IL from Fall 1973 until the time of his passing in 1976, There was nothing of that locomotive at his place and I did not hear anyone talk about it.

I contacted a person from the Riverside and Great Northern group, who forwarded this photo, along with a report from a former Sandley employee who was there at the time the Pacific arrived:

"[I]n addition to the photos in the post you linked to, we have the photo below (tender and engine behind 128) and this comment by one of our former employees who was at the Sandley Works at the time the locomotive was there...:

"All I know about it for sure is that it arrived about the same time as the two German engines Elliott wanted us to fix up for Brookfield Zoo. [A certain employee] wasn't into 'fixing' stuff up, so he conned Elliott into butchering the Brigadelok into a 2-8-0 tender engine, and then building the entirely new 2-4-2. The 0-4-0T German engine went to Heritage Square in Golden, Colo., but I've no idea where the Pacific went. By the time I saw it, the boiler and 'sheet metal' was gone, and it was just a bare chassis."'

The tender seemed bigger than the one in the picture, it could have been the same one, but the late Jim Machacek of Northfeild Minnesota was using a tender he borrowed from someone in the Minneapolis area. I think I was told it went with a Pacific type locomotive.
This was in the 90's or early 2000's.

In looking at the grainy photos provided, I believe Mikechoochoo is correct.... Florida Southwestern 425's tender may very well be what became the tender of Jim Machacek's 504, and is still in service with her as Frisco 504 here at Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO. The main giveaway is the tender trucks with their more modern styling. We had to replace them for the much heavier theme park service (we built heavy duty arch bar trucks with bigger wheels and axles), but it would explain why they were so "spindly" in their construction (tiny axles and bearings and very soft springs) since they were meant to be behind this smaller scale 4-6-2. This also would explain why there was a large patch placed at the back of the tender tank as well as a heavier channel steel "double" frame underneath.... clearly it was widened and lifted to an extent to go behind 504 once it got to Northfield. I also remember Jim's son, Dave, mentioning that his dad had told him that the tender was originally from "somewhere in Florida" when we were up there purchasing the equipment.

I can't be 100%, but I'm fairly certain we've nailed down the tender portion of this mystery.

Andrew Dean
CMO Frisco Silver Dollar Line
Branson, MO

...and the engine surfaced a month or so ago on Craigslist, of all places...

https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/hnp/ ... 68498.html

This engine has been a subject of discussion at Park, Zoo & Amusement Train Rides, a Facebook group (set for private, you'd have to join Facebook to see it).

What may be of interest here are some photos from that Facebook group, courtesy of Matthew Cole. One thing that stands out is a photo of the running gear, minus boiler, but with the rear of the frame missing. This is supposed to be at Sandley Light Railway Works.

Someone has clearly hacked off the frame behind the rear drivers. Why? What was the intention? In the Craig’s list photos, the firebox is being supported by cribbing. I don’t know what the plan was, but they essentially destroyed a beautiful little engine. What a shame.

I'm beginning to think this engine never had a cradle. The last old B&W photo shows no cradle and it doesn't look like it had one at that time. My guess is that the firebox bore its weight right on the back of the trailing truck. The real question is where is the trailing truck?

Over on Chaski, it was noted yesterday that the boiler has a large section removed from the shell. So unless you have lots of $$ for a new boiler, build a new training truck and tender, this will be a hard to sell locomotive.

Rob Gardner

You can clearly see the torch cuts lopping off the rear of the frame and running forward just above the brake hanger pivots. Maybe the frame got badly damaged and that is why it was done…. Just can't believe someone off handily had a spur of the moment “good” idea.