Les and all,

I am glad this little locomotives made it out of the Indiana melt down. As fas as I know, it is one of only two wooden electric locomotives.

The other of course is the restored Atlantic Shoreline #100 at Seashore trolley Museum.

I hope the owner or owners can get it back on display at another museum.

By the way, the Shore Line Trolley Museum owns but does not preserve some wood box cars of similar vintage that were used at a Singer plant in Connecticut. The locomotive from that plant seems to be long gone.

They also have an even more primitive electric locomotive. It is a powered flat car from the Lincoln Bleachery in Rhode Island. The car was at Edaville Railroad many years ago.

And the North Shore #162 was owned by North Shore historian John Horachuck. I think he donated it to the Illinois Railway Museum after the Indiana museum closed. It joins several other North Shore cars at IRM that he helped to preserve.

Ted Miles, IRM Member

Boyd -

This looks to be a copy of number 1, which is certainly a possibility. Singer number 3 is the boxcab that was at an operation in Illinois and not in South Bend. If it IS number 3, and was at North Chicago where IRM had its early collection before moving to Union, what happened to the unit?

Les

I can find five GE electrics built for Singer.

1470 LS404-E-30 B-B Std 500v 2/1898
Singer Manufacturing Co, Elizabethport, N J
1695 LS204-C1 B Std 28” 250v 11/1901
Singer Sewing Machine Co #2, Elizabethport, N J
1946 LS204-D1 B Std 30” 250v 6/1903
Singer Sewing Machine #3, Elizabethport, N J
2245 LM209-G1 B Std 33” 250v /1905
Singer Manufacturing, Elizabethport, N J
4843 LS207-G2 B Std 500v /1914
Singer Manufacturing Co, Elizabethport, N J

There appear to be no Baldwin electrics built for them.

My best guess is that C/N 1470 is #1 and that the B-B designation is a missprint. Elizabethport was the company headquarters so that was the place of record for the locomotives.

Ted, what is your definition of a "wooden" electric locomotive? We have two at BERA/SLTM that I think meet this definition. One is the Lincoln Bleachery locomotive "Dummy" and the other is a very early GE 4-wheeler that was used in a foundry and which is called "Amy"
Edit: While at Walmart earlier today browsing the railway parts aisle I was reminded that we actually have a third wooden locomotive, more of an experimental although it was used commercially for 2 years. This is the "Derby" from 1888.



That is correct. We have a number of 4-wheel wooden boxcars. I'm pretty sure the Singer plant in question was in Elizabeth, NJ. Whatever locomotive may have existed back in the early 1960s when these boxcars came here was not part of the acquisition. These boxcars were brought here for parts storage and that's what they continue to do. They are not in our collection. Some of them have been
altered here. At times I've tried to find other museums who are interested in these for historic preservation purposes but very few bites.

Jeff,

I know the Shore Line collection well. I am glad to hear the Lincoln Bleachery locomotive is still around. It was many years since I saw it at Edaville.

My source is the Preserved Electric Cars web site. It appears that they want a wood frame as well as the body. It think the Lincoln Bleachery loco has a steel frame?

Ted66

Seeing the note about the 4-wheel boxcars, I did have a look at my slides from a 2004 visit to Branford and found I had taken a photo of one of them...

I am assuming the loco on the left is the Lincoln Bleachery one.

70000 -

Thanks for the photo. Neat loco! Neat 4 wheel boxcar!


Les

Story on the Ahead of the Torch website today shows the 1898-built Singer 4 wheel wood freight motor being moved to the Hoosier Heartland Trolley Company for preservation. Included in the donation, made by the family of the late David W. Peat, is the companion 4 wheel "flat car".

Les