Was watching a documentary about the Appalachian mountains during the late 18th, early 19th century and its development of the RR's to the mines and timber fields to haul coal and timber out.

The film featured an old still photo of the front of a big N&W mallet locomotive sitting on a turntable with about 4-5 men on its front. That was very interesting in itself, but the really interesting part was that I saw two draft buffer blocks, one on each side of the modern (MCB or AAR contour) coupler, and the two buffers were about 12-16" wide and were protruding out front just enough to prevent slack run in on that automatic coupler when it was coupled to another coupler.

I knew the buffer blocks were for slack control, as thier length would have put their front face at the half-way point in the coupler contour, making them just touch another set of these same buffers mounted on a second locomtive or tender when intercoupled.

These front buffers appeared to be the same as the buffers commonly mounted between a locomotive and its tender to control slack while working on the firing deck.

My questions are;
Does anyone have a photo of these rare "pusher" buffers?
Were these a "N&W only" experiment, or a long term solution on the N&W and other roads as well?

Like this Z-1?

The Lackawanna used them in 1900:

http://www.shorpy.com/node/9335?size=_original#caption

Given the time period just after or as link and pin couplings were replaced by the Janney coupler is it possible these are the kind of "dead blocks" frequently seen with the link and pin couplings? Could they just have been left in place when new couplings were installed?

Not quite the same yet, but you are getting close.

The Z1 looks to have them mounted higher than the ones I saw.

The bufferes I saw were about this same size as in the linked lackawanna photo, though the N&W version were mounted horizontally, and at the same level as the coupler.

It was only a few second glempse with no warning, but I might have seen a smokebox door mounted above center on the smokbox, and I did see the huge front cylenders, what would that be? a Y class? It could have been that late.

Wow, Camelback Twelve-Wheelers......NEAT! Can anyone read the plate that is on the cylinder of 4-8-0 #807? I can't quite make it out. Thanks.


Les

Les- looks like BROOKS

Found it, maybe.

In the still photo that I saw from the front, the blocks appeared to be in this same position, but the coupler appeared to be mounted farther back.

http://www.steamlocomotive.com/chesapeake/nw2197.jpg

Thanks to and for; Steamlocomotive.com

Chris -

Thanks. Brooks Locomotive Works makes sense. These DL&W Twelve-Wheelers must have been built before Brooks went into the American Locomotive amalgamation.

Les

I didn't have the time to look, but maybe you can find a photo in this collection, courtesy of the Norfolk & Western Historical Society:

http://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/rollings ... tions=True

The online archives aren't just for locomotives:

http://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/

Good luck.

Thats where I started, but couldn't find a good photo.

Its strange that the practice was used enough to end up in one photo and appear like it was a developed practice, but them not appear anywhere else in the same way.

It must not have been used in the same way for very long or the photo record would show it to be the same in more then just a couple of photos.

This was prior to allignmnet control, so maybe it was only for a few assigned pushers and there are few photos of them from the front.

How about the tender rear, the blocks must be on the tender as well in order to function as draft buffers. I can't find those photos either.