Kevin Keefe of Classic Trains has filed this kind report about a pair of C&NW R-1 class engines:
http://cs.trains.com/ctr/b/mileposts/ar ... h39oKXuMcE

mld

Do my eyes deceive me or does 175 have outside piston valves? Then also Walschaert valve gear?

Phil Mulligan

That is what is stated in the article. I thought that all the C&NW 4-6-0's with outside valve gear were Omaha Road engines, with a different class designation, but I am by no means an expert on the C&NW.

Here you go.

The C&NW had 325 R-1s. They were built during the transition from slide valves to piston valves and thus have a variety of valve gear configurations. A few had traditional slide valves with Stephenson gear, some had inward tilted piston valves with Stephenson gear, like 1385 and some had the more usual Walshaerts configuration like the 175. An interesting class that served for so many years that nearly all were modified from "as built" to something different. How they ended up at the end of steam often had no relation to their "as built[" appearance..

As I write this I don't have the reference materials handy that we've accumulated for an eventual National Register nomination for C&NW 175, but I believe the last 20 R-1s had Walschaerts valve gear and outside-admission valves. Thanks are due the Chicago and North Western Historical Society for their publications and the Mid-continent Railway Historical Society for access to their drawing collection, which will let us get started on the 175.

Many parts have gone missing since the photo above was taken, and will be made from scratch, or scrounged. In some cases, it's no loss, such as the air reservoirs, which are typically not salvageable on an engine this old.

We received a gift of one part that's too cool not to relate. The pastor of the old Mariner's Church at Detroit asked around at his model-railroad club if anyone needed a bell that had sat unused for decades in the church basement. As Gordon Lightfoot listeners know, they've got all the bells they need. This one seems to be a spare for a Lima 2-8-2 that had been donated by the D&TSL in the 1950's. Over the years many locomotive bells wound up in churches, but this is the first one we know of to make the trip in the other direction.

Aarne Frobom
Steam Railroading Institute
Owosso, Michigan