While adding this museum to my directory, I happened across the home page.

They obviously have a nice NP 4-4-0 on display. There's no question on that one.

My question is "What the heck is that loco on the home page?!?" http://www.bonanzaville.org/

Some kind of a foreign 10 wheel loco? Do they actually have this oddity, or did they simply grab some steam locomotive clipart? Anyone recognize that engine? What/where is that?

This appears to be one of a series of 60 0-10-0's built for Soviet Railways (SZD) by H. Cegielski Works of Poznan, Poland in 1951 through 1953. A photo of one located in Bryansk, Russia is provided below:



The cupola (for lack of a better word) atop the locomotive's cab, the dome arrangement, and the plow blade pilot were typical of locomotives built for switching service on SZD in that time frame. Anyhow, couldn't identify the specific locomotive in the photo, but am pretty sure that they haven't sneaked an 0-10-0 into North Dakota without some railfan noticing.

It may seem odd (or even bizarre) to Western eyes, but the E Class 0-10-0s were actually built as road power, and have their roots in a Tsarist-era 0-10-0 class that was originally built right around the dawn of the 20th Century. Over 10,000 of these were built, in several variants, for SZD alone. No accounting of the number built for various industrial administrations is known to have been published. The E Class may very well have been the most numerous steam locomotive class in the world, outnumbering (for example) the entire steam locomotive inventory of British Rail at it's peak.

Thanks guys! The "Vista Dome" cab is what first caught my eye.

Fairly unique, and as you say, I don't think they have one in ND...

Thus violating yet another rule of good website design. Don't include photos of equipment you don't have, or places you don't run.

In case anyone does care, the book "Rail Facts and Feats" by John Marshall (part of a reference series that, at one point, had the "Guinness Book" name applied) listed the Soviet 0-10-0 E Class as the "largest class of locomotives ever built," with about 14,000 examples built since 1912. Good luck getting hard data, but the numbers generally presented are 11,000 to 14,000, depending on what sub-classes were built when, with what modifications, and by whom.

The multiple garage doors around the 4-4-0 is a neat way to do an indoor/outdoor display.

http://www.steamlocomotive.info/vlocomo ... isplay=805

The 684 has an interesting history. Reacquired by the NP for exhibition purposes, donated to its current home by the BN.

Here is a neat photo:

http://morphotoarchive.org/rvndb/rvnjpeg_img_rec.php?objno=RVN17907

Very neat engine. I suspect that all the photos available of 684 are so early that all are B&W, and the museum didn't think to take some posed shots before putting it in the building (likely on a trailer and disconnected from its tender until both were inside.)

Lacking any good (read color) photo of the artifact, the web designer went browsing for clip art.

That's one of the dangers of contracting web design.

I just like to think that somewhere, in the former Soviet Union, there is a web site for a local railroad museum that uses a picture of 684 on its home page, equally confusing those in the area.