Someone over on a CSX/Baltimore based Facebook group posted the below photo to Facebook today, taken ca. 1980,:



Now, I know where this loco is TODAY; the owner has asked privacy, and I ask that anyone knowing its present whereabouts keep them quiet. It's well-hidden enough at the moment that I walked RIGHT PAST it without knowing it when I was on the property, and you're not going to be able to get onto the property without permission or see it from public property.

However, neither I nor the rail preservation friends friendly with the owner know anything about the ancestry or maker of this loco, and I can't find any likely match-up in various steam locomotive lists, online or elsewhere.

Any ideas?

UPDATE: I've tentatively eliminated one "suspect," former US Navy 0-4-2T 5, last used at a quarry along the B&O near Greenbelt/College Park, Md., and believed scrapped in the late 1990s, on the basis of side-by-side photo comparisons.

Though I cannot tell if it ever had a trailing truck, the frame aft of the last driver looks long enough that it might have. It bears a resemblance to U.S. Navy 0-4-2T No. 5 which was supposedly scrapped at College Park a few years back.

I have a photo of the locomotive, pre-scrapping, but no permission to publish it, unfortunately.

I used to pass by the College Park/Greenbelt locomotive every day. I'm very sure it was scrapped. I worked for a good friend of the owner and he confirmed it was scrapped when the old man passed. The dome bases on the mystery loco indicate to me that it's not a saddle tank locomotive. It's also much smaller than the Greenbelt locomotive.

Mike Stillwell
Buena Vista, VA.

I don't think they are the same locomotive. A quick look shows different crossheads and guides, and in the larger 'dis-assembled' image, I don't see any evidence of there ever having been an air compressor. I sure others will spot many other differences.

The dome bases appear to fit the radius of the boiler shell, so it probably was not a tank engine, but some sort of Forney or 0-4-2.......based on the length of the frame and water tank on the rear frame extension.

There are two vertical holes in the smokebox and what appears to be a rusted circlular area surrounding them..... so I'd be looking for a builder of smaller industrial locomotives (very small lap seam boiler and no sign of air brakes or compressor) who used a circular builders' plate with vertical mounting holes.

It's too well proportioned to be a Glover......Davenport, Porter or Vulcan would be the obvious culprits for a first glance.

Perhaps this is an old elevated railroad lokie?

dave

could it be US Navy #7




http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/s ... sage/15761

Negative. #7 is a clone of #5, and there are enough detail differences that I can categorically say "not the same loco as this one".

This turned up somewhere else:



No. PLEASE don't start THAT story going around. No no nonononono............. <:/

Just curious, did anyone check to see if the builder and boiler number were stamped on the steam dome?

Given the bent supports and other damage, I was going to ask if it had been involved in a rollover. The quarry story sounds plausible to me.

What is the number and information stamped on the cylinder?

Wesley

As things stood the last time I was there, it's so well "buried" that it would take an hour or three to get in far enough to find either set(s) of numbers, and another couple hours to "re-bury/re-hide" her. I'm NOT about to ask the owner to do so. It's in a place/area where such "hiding" is somewhat justified.

I'm also of the opinion that even the owner doesn't really know what he has........

And because I now notice that I didn't make it clear in the original post, this loco is currently in what I will call central Maryland, not too far from CSX trackage, which is how the subject came up.....

So then the owner isn't really that curious of her origin? I mean, if it is not worth a few hours of dectective work to him, it doesn't sound like he is all that interested.

Rob

what is interesting is that the middle dome shows no signs of damage but the third dome is bent and the smokestack shows signs of being torn off, none of these seem to be from scavengers or scrappers. from the brackets on the boiler and how tall the domes are, the locomotive seemed to have some sort of saddle tank but as said before there are no signs of compressors or any indication of air brakes. A H.K. Porter type locomotive seems to be most likely however most porters seem to have a spacing in between the first and second dome for the bell while this locomotive does not.

I suspect he knows but isn't talking.

The guy is known to a few of the "right" preservationists, and he has supposedly facilitated the preservation of a few other sizable artifacts, and may be still sitting on one prize piece better than this, according to our mutual friends.

I think it is a 1900-1930 period Porter, the bell on some including this one was between the first sand dome and the smokestack, you can see the mounting holes for it.