This recently came through on railpictures.net. Just when you think you've seen it all something like this comes along. I don't really know what else to say.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 615&nseq=5

Another "If you built a model of it, you'd be laughed right out of the model RR club meeting" creation of a poverty-stricken rail operation. Back in the 1930's, the Ludlow and Southern shop forces removed the cab, boiler and cylinders from an ex-New York Central 4-6-0 and mounted a Holt tractor engine on the frame. To quote from Railroads of Nevada and Eastern California Vol. 2 "The job was never finished, so historians can only speculate on what type of superstructure was envisioned for this monstrosity." Maybe there's a modeler out there who will rise to the challenge and "complete the assignment."

I love the little access hatch thats been cut out of the side of the smokebox. Looks like the smokebox door has been completely removed to give the motor an air intake. Also notice the monster dosen't seem to have couplers. Guess they just bumped this thing up against cars and shoved?

Did whats left of this engine survive or has it been scrapped?

I am speculating on the history of this old girl. She was built by Baldwin in the late 1800's. She earned her keep for a shortline or lumber operation and was well kept and the pride of the shop foreman. The depression was hard on her and she lost some of her luster and maintenance was not as frequent. After soldiering on she was sold in "used up" condition to the lumber operation. She ran for a few more years with a wide assortment of band-aids, rubber bands, bubble gum, and of course duct tape. It got so that either the boiler leaked so bad it kept putting the fire out or the running gear fell apart or both.

Then one day with Hank Williams cracking over an AM radio a couple of guys went to work on her with a torch, welding machine, and a pile of old sawmill parts. There may have been some beer drinking during the process, maybe Red, White, & Blue or possibly Coors. Then the old girl emerged from the shop, now bionic, and went back to work. She continued to push cars on and off until she fell apart like the Bluesmobile in the ending scenes of the Blues Brothers. Her components rusted in place and she returned to the earth until nothing remained but bits of rust mixed in with the rich Louisiana soil.

But was it an automatic or stick shift? :-)

...I'm sure it could be ordered either way...

It probably had an AM radio somewhere in the cab and if she lasted until 1974 they would have bought one of those add on FM converters from Radio Shack.

I saw a short article of this loco with 2-3 photos in Trains or Railfan magazine in the mid-late 1970's. I seem to recall that it had a front coupler only.

Doug vV

The Heritage museum has an CPR 0-6-0 that's had an interal combustion engine shoved into the boiler. I remember looking at the cab, and all the weird gauges it had...

My guess would be that's somewhere in Cuba.

Oh yea, due to the drive chain arrangement, it's a 2-2-4-0 now... :-)

So this would be the tender-less version of what putters around in Green Bay.

Steve

Actually, I think this one is better done than the one in Green Bay.

WOODARD WALKER LUMBER CO 2-6-0 INTERNAL COMBUSTION SEP/OCT 1993 26 CHARLES W. LAVAN


narrow gauge shortline gazette featured it

Watched this beast work a couple of times back in the day. It had the same roller chain drive on the engineer's side between the center and lead drivers. Proper nomenclature would be a 1-C, I suppose. Its primary purpose was shoving wood chip hoppers under the loading spout. My recollection is it had a stick shift with some long linkage to the transmission. It had an instrument panel which looked a lot to me like one in a 1941 Oldsmobile. Note what appears to be a builder's plate in place on the engineer's side smoke box ventilation flap. There was a battery salvage operation off in the woods in another Louisiana town that used an 0-6-0 with the same set up.

Victor Koenigsberg's "Steam Locomotive Directory" has the 2-6-0's history as follows
Baldwin #60786 5/29 as East Texas & Gulf Ry (Hyatt, TX) #53, then Gifford-Hill & Co. (Turkey Creek, La.) #53, then Woodard-Walker Lumber Co. (Taylor, La.) #53. Taylor/Ada, La., are essentially the same spot.

The 0-6-0 you reference was also owned/converted by Woodard-Walker and was used at their Heflin, La., location, which was later sold to General Battery Corp.
It was Baldwin #57405 ?/23, and was still around in Dec 1974. Here's a "pre-op" photo http://tinyurl.com/yknjd3a

Jim Tatum.