The Southeastern Railway Museum in Duluth, GA has available Lima fireless 0-4-0 "Dayton" which was built for National Cash Register in 1913. The Museum's Board of Trustees recommended deaccessioning to the Atlanta Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society as part of the Museum's ongoing effort to better define its collection focus and policies. The Atlanta NRHS Board ratified the action a few years ago and we are now ready to accept qualified offers.

Please contact the Museum at steam@train-museum.com for details.

Have you contacted the Carillon Historic Park in Dayton?

They already have a sister NCR fireless: "Rubicon," built four years earlier (1909 versus 1913), looking great.

Indeed! That’s why I thought of them.

And displayed indoors

Just a quick post to let everyone know we are closing the window for interest on Tuesday, August 31st. We will send out the request for proposal by mid-September. If anyone still has an interest, please send us an email.

steam@train-museum.com

Thanks for your interest!

Just for information: has asbestos abatement already been performed?

Abatement and remediation will have to be done as part of the acquisition and the Museum has the space to perform the work and has already found a contractor that has a reasonable quote to do the work. All parties interested will be evaluated for their ability to restore, conserve and publicly display the Dayton as our only desire is to get it in the hands of an organization that best fits the locomotive's historical value.

I have always wished there were fireless cookers running today. It's a shame that there are no museums or tourist operations that I'm aware of which have large stationary boilers to charge one up with.
They'd be almost perfect for a volunteer effort like that, in that you can't do nearly as much harm to one as you can a steam loco with a firebox.

I believe the last full-size one to operate in North America was Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. 0-6-0F No. 6 at the Lake Shore Rwy Museum in North East, PA in 2002.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voBKRe6V3tA

Is Apache Powder 0-4-0F No. 6 at the Arizona State Railroad Museum still operational?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eksTQLF19c

AFAIK no one's had it out of storage since it arrived some years ago. Not saying it couldn't, but.....

Most folks fantasizing such museum operation of a fireless tend to forget one important detail: For proper recharging for anything but a few feet of operation, you need a boiler and charging line of 500-1,000 PSI or even more. The higher pressure equals higher temperature and the higher charge needed for longer operation. The superheated water becomes a reservoir of stored potential energy, with superhot water becoming more steam as the pressure is reduced. And the connection of the charging line is not a trifle. I used to watch the charging of among the last fireless steamers in the USA (a PP&L power plant in Shamokin Dam, Pa., until 1989), and the crews made themselves scarce once the lines got connected before they turned on the steam/water.
By comparison, charging a fireless steamer with compressed air is little more than a Gedanken experiment.

Those were both operated on compressed air- not on steam. Aside from the 0-6-0 at Steamtown that was run on steam during a one-off event decades ago (late 1970s?), another fireless has not run on steam in preservation since- and none have ever been fully restored to FRA compliance and run in preservation. The last fireless to run in revenue service in the US ran at a plant in Tennessee in 1992, iirc, and famously there are several in Europe that were bought back from museums to be returned to revenue service and continue to operate today, some even with RC setups.

Keep in mind it wasn't until the 1940s that fireless engines were developed at high pressures. The example here at Southeastern only ran at 150 or 155psi. To charge that you only need a steam source of equivalent or greater pressure (high temperature superheated steam would be desirable to decrease charging time). Charging a fireless isn't about the pressure, but charging it with the thermal energy needed to get the water to critical point and required pressure. Steam is simply the medium to deliver the thermal energy.

-Sam

North American Rayon of Elizabethton, TN did indeed use a fireless until an unknown date in 1992.

However, I believe the title of 'last fireless to run in revenue service' belongs to 0-4-0F #4 at Sensient Flavors (originally Huron Milling) in Harbor Beach, MI, which last operated on February 22, 1994 (when the line to Harbor Beach was abandoned by HESR due to damaged track as a result of using heavier GP38-2s). Sadly, I have never seen any photos of this fireless in operation...

The fireless is still on the property of Sensient, and is kept looking nice by the company.

Here is a listing of 'last runs' of steam locomotives in the US:
https://www.steamlocomotive.com/events/lastofsteam.php