Some photos of the Milwaukee Road narrow gauge in Iowa. These locomotives operated over the former "Chicago, Bellevue, Cascade & Western Railway". It sounds like this line was Iowa's version of the Durango & Silverton; it had an uncompensated 2.8% grade, and some 12 ½ degree curves. Actually, I think 2.8% is steeper than the Durango & Silverton!

From what I gather on-line, there are very few artifacts remaining from this operation. One caboose remains. Any cars left?

For you steam experts, is there anything interesting, out of the ordinary, or worth noting about these locomotives?

(Photos from my collection)

Locomotive #1


Locomotive #2


Locomotive #3


Locomotive #4

I see now that a car survives in Cascade, Iowa:
http://condrenrails.com/JDI/Iowa-2010/IMG_3092.jpg

FLO -

I seem to recall reading that a local group tried to keep the railroad (or a portion of it at least) running after the Milwaukee Road abandoned it. Maybe using a gas locomotive. But maybe I am getting my stories mixed up.

Les

Well, let's see what a little internet looking brings up:

http://iagenweb.org/boards/dubuque/docu ... ead=205271

This one confirms what I thought: those top-mounted air tanks on No. 4 suggested she was from the Colorado Southern (she had been No. 55 on that road):

http://on30annual.com/extra/on30_extra_ ... ascade.php

Hey, a photo roster! Courtesy of Don's Depot:

http://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr051.htm

There is a book available on the road:

http://www.amazon.com/Milwaukee-Road-Na ... 0871086948

And an online segment of George Hilton's "American Narrow Gauge Railroads" is available, with a brief history of the line, including its locomotive history.

Hope that longish link works:

http://books.google.com/books?id=7POj8G ... ay&f=false

Have fun.

This one's cool--road transport of locomotives in 1870, courtesy of the Don's Depot site above:

http://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr0101/sk196.jpg

http://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr0101/sk197.jpg

Shades of the Reading in the 19th century! Check out the cab mounting on this 2-6-0:

http://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr1100/sk25.jpg

Ron Travis will be interested in the tank on this one. The headlight is missing, something I understand was common (many roads supplying their own headlights):

http://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr1100/sk31.jpg

Keep having fun.

A couple of books about this narrow gauge have been published. The first was published back in 1985 and seems to be expensive in the used book market:
Milwaukee Road Narrow Gauge: The Chicago, Bellevue, Cascade, and Western - Iowa's Slim Princess by John Tiggs and Jon Jacobson. Published by Heimburger House Publishing Company in 1985

The second one is one currently available from Arcadia Publishing:
Iowa's Last Narrow-Gauge Railroad by John Tigges, James Shaffer

Your memory is correct, Les.
Below is information about it from one of those links by J3a-614:

A rather common arrangement at the time she was built, WP&Y 69 is almost the same:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=1334039

I've never seen a good explanation for the reasoning behind this "deckless with the backhead sticking out a bit" arrangement.

The C&T #2 is interesting. As Dennis has mentioned, the boiler extending through the cab was common, and I too have never heard any discussion explaining the rationale behind that architecture. I suppose it is just a way to minimize the locomotive length by eliminating the length occupied by only the cab length.

There has always been some intrusion into the cab by the firebox, and it seems like the exact amount varies to every possible ratio. And the camelback design for the Wotten firebox proved that all the cab had to be at minimum was a pair of human occupancy “saddlebags” on the boiler.

What I find somewhat unusual about the C&T engine is that the firebox runs completely through the cab and out the back by a couple feet. That gets into camelback territory. Why would they have not used that volume around the extended firebox for the cab? They had to put a handrail alongside of it to keep people from falling off, so why not just extend the cab enclosure around that area?

Another thing that I find most unusual about this locomotive is the overall difference in elevation from front to rear. Apparently that is just an optical illusion caused by the camera lens. Everything is simply converging toward the rear in an exaggerated perspective. It seems like an oddly unflattering effect to prefer for a builder’s photo.

Just to clarify for folks following this discussion, the C&T (Catskill & Tannersville) #2 being discussed became Milwaukee Road #2 pictured at the top of this thread.

I notice, too, that White Pass & Yukon #69 also has external frames for the driving wheels, same as Milwaukee #2 and #3 above. I never paid much attention to that feature until now.

Outside frames are a common arrangement found on narrow gage engines. Locomotive #1 certainly shows the signs of a lot of clever “homemade” shop work remodeling, including a non-tapered steel pipe smokestack. I stopped by the B&C line one time to see if I could find the old roadbed in the vicinity of that one wreck where a train ran off of a trestle. I could not find any trace of the railroad anywhere near that wreck site or anywhere else in the vicinity.

I just took another look at the builder's photo of C&T No.2, and noticed something else--the engine looks like it might have both air and Eames vacuum braking systems! The air compressor (New York?) is quite visible on the right side, but note that can-like device on the cab roof. That looks like the muffler to the ejector that created the vacuum in a vacuum brake system.

Can anybody confirm or correct this?

(And yes, look at some early Reading engines with Wooten fireboxes, and the cab arrangement, with the cab well to the rear of what would later be typical on a Camelback, is what was used.)

I tried tracing the route from Cascade with satellite images, but lost it. Apparently plowed under. The attached map and marked-up photo of Cascade show the location of the turntable that appears in the locomotive pictures at the beginning of this thread. From the aerials, I don't see any remains of buildings in the old yard area.

Sure looks that way. Looking at the cylinder under the cab, it appears the engine has air brakes. Maybe the company was in the process making a change form one system to the other.

Eames vacuum brake is a predecessor of New York Air Brake.

That looks about like the level or remnants I found when looking for the line. It is intersting looking at that map because there are some things that remain, but so much has been changed. The entire layout north of the railroad grade is different. Yet some of the patterns of land boundaries shown in the old map still exists as visual patterns in the current view.

If I remeber correctly, that wreck site when the train went off of a large trestle was at Washington Mills. I recall visiting the town of Zwingle, among other locations.